SOUL CAKE “Any good thing to make us all merry”. This is the pay-off in English chosen by the Soul Cake patisserie, actually borrowed from the popular 2009 Sting song which just happens to have “Soul Cake” as its title. And it’s with this ambitious spirit to make everyone just a little happier, that Nicola Rizzi, Nicola Angeletti and Mauro Paggi a couple of years ago decided to combine their respective professional experience, all accrued within the pastry and catering sector, to breathe life into something that Chiavenna might just have been lacking.
Soul Cake is a dynamic take-away patisserie, just outside the town on the approach from Prata which following its opening two years ago has spectacularly exceeded its “start-up” status and become a genuinely successful business reality.
This is borne out by the three employees – soon to become four – who have joined the enterprise in the last year, but above all by the satisfaction of the many regulars who come back time and again to purchase the Soul Cake brand.
The genuine transparency of the work is a key element which grabs customers’ attention. The entire establishment is enclosed by glass which faces out onto the outside world. And it’s here in a pristine, snow-white environment that the pastry chefs magic up their sensational creations with absolute precision. It’s a fascinating experience observing the maestri at work.
The secret of Soul Cake is clearly never to produce a dessert remotely commonplace, even with the Italian “classics” to which an original touch is always added (the Tiramisu is a must). But a further feature of the patisserie is their mastery of the larger cakes such as the traditional Easter colomba.
An impressive entrée for sure but the owners are intent on opening a further outlet which would allow customers to hang around to enjoy a dessert along with a quality coffee or cappuccino. In the meantime at least drop in to the original Soul Cake guaranteed to at least “make us all merry.”
