Athan's Bakery

Ferrero Roche, Deux Color, Lemon Tart
Lemon on the left, 2 color on the left

 Athan’s Bakery is a quaint and teensy storefront that hides a large amount of beautiful pastries and cream and anything else you’d expect out of a bakery and more. Their old-fashiony open-air space make me realize I’ve used the phrase open-air too much for it to mean anything, but they beat their nearby competitor Daniel’s Bakery by being open on Sundays and being cozier.


Atmosphere: Huge space above the tables. Yea I think I just failed to come up with a synonym for open-air. The storefront itself is plain glass, and my group actually passed by it without noticing that we had passed it the first time, even though I had noticed it before. In the mornings it is hard to find. Once in, there is a loooong glass display of pastries and chocolates and a big blackboard with prices for other things like coffee. On the left wall there is a big table with glass cake dishes that aren’t filled with cake. I wasn’t sure if they were sample plates or not so I didn’t touch them. They also sold very pretty shaped bottles of honey and jam on the left wall. Fun products overall. All the little cakes are beautiful, the chocolates are too, though weirdly the beauty of them reminded me of Lush’s bath bombs and soaps. Once I saw a Lush display with a bite taken out of it. Good times.


Actual Food: I came for breakfast. There were omelettes served, but I saw them too late. I had already become enamored with the little cakes. It was an absolutely beautiful array of chocolate covered and combined cream cakes, some flavored and some just plain sweet. I ordered a lemon rectangular prism and a 2-colored chocolate covered beauty cube. My friend got a cylinder studded with almonds. The geometry of the food really resonated with me, and made me hesitant to fork into the cakes, but man. I am glad I didn’t just look at them. The first two bites weren’t too excessive, and were heavenly. 1/4 layer of cream, 1/4 layer of lemon soaked cake, the rest good cake dough. Overwhelmingly sweet and creamy and smooth and moist and thick. Overwhelmingly building up to overload of sweetness. The lemon was drowned out by my sugar-sensitive teeth screaming in pain. I feel my teeth gaps coming apart when I eat sweet things. The cube was interesting, same 1/4 cream formula just a vanilla and a chocolate cake dough this time. We all know which flavor won that fight. The cylinder turned out to be a cylindrical version of the Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Pretty tasty, same sugar overload issue.

Rating: 20/30 open airs. Beauty in food and decor, Athan’s fails to please my taste tastes as much as my aesthetic tastes. Proof that beautiful things shouldn’t be experienced in order to preserve our perceived expectations of them.

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