Pastry Chef Cynthia Wong Leaving Cakes & Ale for Empire State South
Decatur Metro | June 2, 2011The AJC’s John Kessler reports that Cakes & Ale’s pastry chef since the restaurant’s inception, Cynthia Wong, is departing and heading to Empire State South “within the month”.
As Kessler notes, this is a bit of a hiccup for the restaurant, which is currently opening a bakery adjacent to its under-construction new location along Sycamore @ Church Street in downtown Decatur.
However, C&A’s chef and owner Billy Allin tells Kessler that they’ve got people in place to fill in during the interim until Allin can rustle up a new executive pastry chef.
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I hope she’s not taking the phatty cakes with her!
I sure have enjoyed having special ordering Cynthia’s birthday cake (the best on the planet, IMHO) the last few years and was looking forward to being able to buy it by the slice at the new bakery. Guess it’s a sign I need to finally visit ESS.
What a shame– I always thought her creations were inspired, and was looking forward to having them more available (and for carry-out, too). Ah, well, C&A will still have awesome food, and now Empire State South will have fabulous desserts!
This is kind of a bummer, but at least she’s staying in Atlanta. Seems like kind of a strange move seeing as she had the rare opportunity to literally build out a bakery to her exact specifications, but I’m sure she had her reasons. Both C&A and ESS are the recent darlings of foodies in Atlanta and beyond (see the recent New York Times piece that covered those two along with Miller Union), so it kind of seems like a lateral move. I wish her well.
Given C&A’s burnished reputation, I have no doubt they’ll be able to poach a pretty stellar pastry chef to head that expansive new operation.