Chef’s Table - Cake walk

Spunky is an apt description for Matty Cakes, the bakery that Matt Lewis opened in August on Piedmont Road.</
How’d you get into this business?</
As a teenager, my mom was going through a divorce and I started helping with the house, my sister and cooking. I had a hard time figuring out what to do. One day, Mom and I had an argument and she said, “Why don’t you just go to culinary school?” I graduated from the [Culinary Institute of America] in Hyde Park [N.Y.] in 1993.</
Where’d you work as a pastry chef?</
At Bacchanalia, Alon’s, the Four Seasons, Eatzi’s.</
How did Matty Cakes manifest?</
Out of my quest to find the best of everything — the best chocolate chip cookie recipes, the best chocolate cake. I wanted to put together a lot of really good things. Our cakes don’t have to look fancy to be delicious.</
The malted milk brownies are deliciously retro.</
I worked and worked on those. I probably made them 20 times.</
What are your other big sellers?</
The red velvet, banana caramel, old-fashioned chocolate and coconut cream cakes. I want people to have fun. Sweets aren’t healthy, but there’s nothing wrong with food coloring. I was trained as a purist, but we are all tired of following the rules.</
Who are your regulars?</
This is the perfect place for a neighborhood bakery. Lots of mothers and children and young urban business professionals seem to be our clients right now.</
I love the decor — all the lime green and orange and purple.</
Most bakeries are Tuscan or French with sponge-painted yellow walls. I wanted to break that mold. Everybody loves sweets and I wanted this to be a happy place. We are trying to have fun and make really good stuff. It’s a lot of work to satisfy a sweet tooth. But at the end of the day, I am not emotionally tired. It’s a different tired — satisfied tired.</
Matty Cakes, 1830 Piedmont Ave. 404-917-CAKE. www.mattycakes.com.</
chefstable@creativeloafing.com



































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