The Cake Bake Shop by Gwendolyn Rogers had its soft opening on Thursday, October 24, 2024. After touring the bakery earlier today, we stopped by the restaurant to try some of the location’s dinner items.
The Cake Bake Shop Restaurant
Exterior
The Cake Bake Shop has a bakery side and a restaurant side. Though the locations have different menus and different entrances, they are connected to one another. Both the restaurant and the bakery can be accessed via Disney’s Boardwalk.
At night, exterior lights illuminate the building, and the menu which is located along the right column outside the front door.
Both the restaurant and bakery will have their official openings tomorrow, October 25. Be sure to check out our review of four of the cake slices available at the bakery.
Interior
When you step inside the building, you’ll enter a lobby with a large white and gold tile with the logo for The Cake Bake Shop. If you go right, left, or straight from here, you enter into one of the restaurant’s dining rooms.
The main dining room has high ceilings, white and gray seating arrangements, numerous beautiful chandeliers, and a carousel-inspired booth in the center. Guests in large parties can sit at a circular booth inside the carousel-inspired structure.
French doors open to another more secluded dining room with a table that seats larger parties. We weren’t able to take a photograph here, as there was a party eating inside. There are numerous chandeliers in the room, as well as mirrors on some of the walls.
Next to the main dining room is a separate room with a bar. The bar is white with a marble countertop. The bar has numerous high-top chairs and a selection of beverages to choose from against the wall.
Behind the high-top chairs are glass tables. Unlike the tables in the main dining room, these tables do not have white tablecloths. There are also multiple booths at the far end of the room.
The wine glasses have the logo for The Cake Bake Shop on them in gold. The coasters are beige. The logo for The Cake Bake Shop is surrounded by a gold border.
Lunch/Dinner Menu
The menus are monochromatic, with the exterior, “The Cake Bake Shop,” and the border all white. The words and border are inscribed into the menus.
The same menus are given for breakfast brunch, lunch, and dinner. The menu has quite a few pages, which is no surprise considering how many items are available at the new restaurant.
Lunch/Dinner Review
Frose Rose – $24.99
Frozen Fortant Grenache Rosé, Tito’s vodka, and our homemade simple syrup
This is a super boozy drink, but for the price that’s what you’d expect. We definitely enjoyed this one a lot.
Rating out of 7: 6
Gwendolyn’s Famous Cosmopolitan – $20.99
Gwendolyn’s personal recipe: Ketel One vodka, Cointreau, fresh lime, cranberry, orange oil, and garnished with an orange peel
This is a syrupy sweet and average Cosmo. The menu makes this out to be the best thing ever, but it’s not. There are many better drinks on this menu.
Rating out of 7: 3
Cake Bake Shop Shake Up – $18.99
Tito’s vodka, freshly squeezed lemon juice, lemons, and lemon bitters, topped with fresh mint
This is fantastic. It has a really strong lemon flavor, which caught us off guard, but it tastes very good. It’s essentially a lemon mint julep.
Rating out of 7: 6
Pink Lady Margarita – $18.99
Milagro Silver tequila, Giffard Pêche, guava syrup, agave nectar, freshly squeezed lime juice, with a Pixie Glitter sugar rim
The presentation is great, and the guava flavor in this is even better. Everything about this drink works, but it’s the guava that makes it. Honestly, this blows away anything in EPCOT. Not too tart and very nice. This was the best drink we had.
Rating out of 7: 7
Truffle Pommes Frites – $17.99
Pommes frites, truffle oil, smoked sea salt, thyme, and Parmesan cheese. Served with our homemade garlic aioli.
These are solid, but they’re not great. They’re similar to what you can get anywhere, so for the price, there’s no reason to get them here. These are Disney standard fries even though this isn’t a Disney restaurant. These could be good to share, and people are going to like them, but they won’t blow your mind. Skip this and get some of the better items.
Rating out of 7: 4
Pesto Burrata – $28.99
Fresh Italian Burrata cheese, our homemade pesto with walnuts, Campari tomatoes, olive oil, and smoked sea salt. Served with sliced toasted French baguette.
This spectacular. The Burrata is perfection. You can’t beat this. This is the freshest Burrata on Disney property. The tomatoes are great. The baguette is incredible. You get a lot and the ingredients are perfect. It’s expensive, but it’s phenomenal. This is signature quality, so the prices make sense.
Rating out of 7: 7
Chicken & Andouille Gumbo – $23.99
Gwendolyn’s recipe is made with an all-butter roux, bell pepper, celery, creole seasoning, thyme, and garlic with roasted chicken and andouille sausage. Topped with long-grain white rice, chopped parsley, a side of New Orleans Crystal hot sauce, and freshly toasted French bread.
It’s got a good flavor, but be prepared for a lot of salt. We don’t necessarily feel the saltiness is a mistake, but it’s still a lot.
When we added the hot sauce, it was better, but we also prefer spicy. It’s expensive for what it is, and one of the most overpriced items that we tried.
Rating out of 7: 4
Classic Burger With Pommes Frites – $26.99
Ground beef chuck served on a toasted brioche buttered bun. Topped with shredded lettuce, pickles, beefsteak tomato, chopped white onion, mayonnaise, and melted Tillamook cheddar cheese.
The price is the price, but this is an exceptional burger. More on that in a moment. First, the fries are better without the truffle. They’re cooked better, and they’re well-salted.
Now for the burger: This is $26.99 but it’s a perfect burger. It’s perfectly cooked and the patty is great. The cheese adds a nice touch and the bun is exceptional and lightly toasted. This has everything going for it.
Rating out of 7: 7
Croque-Monsieur – $26.99
Country bread with French ham, Gruyere cheese, and Maille Dijon mustard topped with our creamy bechamel sauce. Served with arugula salade dressed with our homemade lemon vinaigrette and topped with Parmesan cheese.
The arugula is okay. If it didn’t have the parmesan there’d be nothing to it. We couldn’t figure out the dressing that was on it.
As for the sandwich, you can taste all of the flavors. The bechamel is spectacular. However, this is super heavy. This would have been a perfect choice for the “Choose Two.” It’s very, very good, but it’s a daunting dish at this size.
Rating out of 7: 6
Choose Two – $26.99
Choice of two half portions of the following items in any combination: Turkey & Gruyere Sandwich, French Ham & Brie Sandwich, Chicken Salade Croissant, Cup of Soupe, Lemon Caesar Salade, Blackberry Avocado Salade
We chose the Chicken Salade Croissant and Lemon Caesar Salade.
The croutons are the French bread. They’re good, but this is a very standard Caesar salad. Honestly, the Caesar salad at Tony’s is better.
That said, this sandwich is incredible. The croissant is to die for. We may end up getting this sandwich every time. It’s expensive, but the chicken is perfect and it’s very complex and great.
Skip the salad and get the sandwich.
Rating out of 7: 7
All-Butter Croissant – $5.99
Freshly baked all-butter croissant served with salted European butter and our homemade Pixie Jam.
The croissant is better with the chicken. It’s good, but it’s too big. This is worth the price, but we were expecting more.
Rating out of 7: 5
Key Lime Pie – $14.99
Full of fresh lime zest and freshly squeezed lime juice, our custard is filled into a crust of crushed graham crackers, European butter, and sugar. Topped with freshly whipped cream, lime zest, and fresh lime wedges.
This is unlike any other Key Lime Pie you’ve ever had. The lime portion under the whipped cream is so light and fluffy it’s almost like it has whipped cream in it. Texturally it’s all the same, and this is way lighter than it looks. It’s tart and not sour, and it is absolutely worth the price compared to everything else. This is better value than any of the cakes.
Rating out of 7: 7
Unicorn Hot Chocolate – $10.99
Steamed whole milk with Ghirardelli white chocolate, almond, and strawberry syrup. Topped with freshly whipped cream, mini marshmallows, and Pixie Fetti® confetti.
Be warned, this doesn’t taste like hot chocolate. It tastes like strawberry milk with almond toffee. And the almond flavor is strong, but it all works together. Honestly, this tastes like childhood.
It comes with a donut hole which is also great. As with so many things on the menu, for the price, this is worth it.
Rating out of 7: 7
Gluten-Free Macarons – $4.50 each
Raspberry Champagne, Birthday, Rose, Chocolate Caramel
If you like macarons, then these are worth the price. The cookies are fantastic, but not every macaron flavor is great. Here’s our review of each of them:
The Chocolate Caramel Macaron is very good. The caramel flavor is very intense, but that’s a good thing in this instance. This was our favorite of the four macarons.
Rating out of 7: 6
The name of the Raspberry Champagne Macaron is accurate. You’re going to get both flavors. Unfortunately, the raspberry flavor is artificial, but the champagne flavor comes through to save the day.
Rating out of 7: 5
If you don’t like floral flavors, then stay away from this at all costs. It honestly feels like we ate fragrance. That said, some of us liked this a lot, while some of us absolutely hated it. It’s just weird. If you like floral flavoring, then this is for you.
Rating out of 7: 4
The Birthday Macaron didn’t taste like birthday cake which was really disappointing. But it’s still good, just not what we expected.
Rating out of 7: 4
Chocolate Chip Cookie With Fleur De Sel – $6.99
Both Callebaut Belgian semi-sweet and bitter-sweet chocolates are baked in our buttery cookie dough. Topped with Fleur de Sel from Île de Ré in the South of France.
If this was hot and had a scoop of ice cream, it would be perfect. Even cold, this was so good. It’s salty and sweet, and the chocolate is perfection. It’s super expensive, but you’re paying for the quality of the chocolate. This is more expensive than Gideon’s and there is less cookie to be eaten, but it’s still very tasty.
Rating out of 7: 6
Raspberry Jam Crumble Bar – $13.99
European all-butter shortbread crust topped with our Raspberry Pixie Jam and light brown sugar crumble.
The jam is amazing, and it’s so nice with the crumble and sugar on top. Our biggest complaint, if we had one, is that there is too much shortbread, and while the shortbread is good, it’s not great. But the jam is so incredible that we refuse to knock this for a thick bottom layer. This is the perfect way to end a full meal. It’s also very sharable.
Rating out of 7: 7
Overall
While there are some items that are undoubtedly way too expensive, other items are exactly what you’d expect from signature dining at Disney. The quality of some of the items, such as the Burrata, Key Lime Pie, and the Chicken Salade Croissant, make The Cake Bake Shop restaurant worth a visit. There are a few items that miss, but the items that hit are fantastic.
Essentially, if you’re willing to pay the price, you won’t be disappointed, but there are much cheaper options available on Disney property with comparable versions of some of these items. If it wasn’t for the prices, we really wouldn’t have anything to complain about.
Finally, we want to commend the Cast Members. The service was absolutely incredible. They made an effort to make sure that the workers were Cast Members from other Disney restaurants, so they know what guests expect when dining at a Disney restaurant. Top-of-the-line service all around.
Check back for our full video review of The Cake Bake Shop restaurant. Do you plan on visiting The Cake Bake Shop when it opens tomorrow? Let us know in the comments.
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