Review: The Cake Bake Shop Is a Meal Fit for a Princess

Fare at the Boardwalk’s Cake Bake Shop Restaurant is American classics, and we mean the ones in your church or PTA cookbook. When my family recently ate there, we saw instantly how Cake Bake Shop fits into the Disney World picture, and we agreed we’d happily eat the food any time. But the controversial pricing does give rise to some questions about value. Read on to see what we found and what we thought.

The white and gold exterior doesn’t clash with the Boardwalk’s vintage seaside vibe, but it does feel maybe a bit more formal than you would expect to see there. And I admit, when I first saw the concept art years ago, I was puzzled as it didn’t seem an obvious fit with the location. Once I stepped through the door, that was the “a-ha” moment. Disney World is about the themed experience as much – or more than – it is about riding thrilling roller coasters. This restaurant is a themed experience, and it is all in on what it offers.

Pictures cannot do justice to the princess tea party dream wedding energy that oozes from every square inch of the decor. There is garland with lights sparkling in the twinkly tinsel, and padded chairs that could be in a royal family’s dining room (maybe), and lots and lots of white, but all different shades to keep it from getting boring. The decor changes with the season; the picture above was shortly after the switch to autumn, and the one below is from winter.

The drink menu has Petunia Punch, Pink Princess, and Sparkling Lavender Lemonade; they all come with sparkly iridescent glitter mixed in. And like the more pedestrian lemonade and soda options, they come with free refills, so that you can sip your magical sparkly drink throughout your meal.

I’m not throwing shade, I promise! It’s just that it’s hard to describe how perfectly this restaurant sells the same fairytale image as you’ll find between the covers of every magazine for brides, or that thousands of little girls have held in their heads as they hosted tea parties where captive fathers put their pinkies up as they sipped.

At dinner, starters range from $13 to $28; mains from $24 to $59, and desserts from $4.50 to $22. Expect to pay $70 to $90 for a full three-course meal, not including drinks and gratuities. (View the menu here) The Cake Bake Shop Restaurant does not accept the Disney Dining Plan.

Dinner is from 5 pm to 11 pm every day; the restaurant also serves breakfast, lunch, and a Roses of Gold afternoon tea. Reservations are available on My Disney Experience through Disney World, and they are often difficult to find there, even if you book when your 60+10 day window opens. However, The Cake Bake Shop Restaurant also offers reservations through OpenTable, where they are not scarce and can be booked much farther in advance. It will be interesting to see if anything changes here in the future; there were no tables available in MDE on the night we dined, but the restaurant was half-empty at least.

Starters

Avocado Stack – $22.00
With crumbled goat cheese, shallots, tomatoes, and balsamic pearls. Served with balsamic reduction, olive oil, and toasted French baguette.

Aside from the balsamic pearls, there’s nothing about this dish that you can’t buy in a supermarket and assemble for yourself; the familiar flavors are what-you-see-is-what-you-get. But everything about this dish was perfect, in a way that looks easier to achieve than it is. Every ingredient was quality. The balance of components was exactly right. The baguette was exactly toasty and browned without being overly dry or shatteringly crisp. The plating, as you can see, was beautiful. Don’t let the simplicity of this dish fool you into thinking it didn’t require skill. And they nailed it.

Pesto Burrata – $28.00
Fresh Burrata cheese, walnut pesto, Campari tomatoes, olive oil, and smoked sea salt. Served with sliced toasted French baguette.

Did you read what I said about the Avocado stack? I could say that same thing here again. The burrata was luscious, the pesto was pungent, and the tomatoes were ripe and juicy. Simple flavors, sure. But we ate everything off this plate and might have licked it if no one was looking.

Chicken Velvet Soupe – $13.00
Gwendolyn’s version of an L.S. Ayres tea room classic from Indianapolis. Chicken stock, poached chicken, and cream. Served with a toasted half French baguette.

Let’s talk soupe vs. soup. In a nutshell, this is cream of chicken soup. Cream of chicken soup has a bad rap because it’s often overly salted, and many of us associate the canned versions with gloppy, subpar casseroles. This soupe deserves its fancy e on the end. It’s so good that if you made one of those casseroles and used this instead of the red and white can, I’d be willing to give it another try. I did let everyone else have a spoonful to taste … but only one.

Lemon Caesar Salade – $25.00
Romaine, our homemade croutons, lemon Caesar dressing, and Parmesan cheese.
Also available with chicken for an additional $10 or salmon for an additional $13.

The lemon Caesar dressing was a light and tangy version of the usual, and the croutons were A+. Another bonus point for being huge, easily large enough to share. But … there wasn’t enough Parmesan, and so the contrasting bite against the dressing was missing. And there was no briny or umami note from capers or anchovies. It was a very good salad, and I might order it again. But held against the standard by a Caesar salad snob like me, it didn’t quite pass.

Entrees

Gwendolyn’s Signature Chicken and Andouille Gumbo – $24.00
Topped with long-grain white rice and chopped parsley. Served with a side of New Orleans Crystal hot sauce and toasted Gambino’s French bread.

The flavor was well-rounded and balanced, with all the flavors coming from the deep brown roux, stock, and seasoning. It’s a good gumbo for those who don’t like spicy, because there was barely a hint of it. All in all it was fine but not special, and the plating was odd. A deeper bowl would have made the rice and shrimp look less lonely. Now, I am normally not a stickler for plating; I’ll rave about an ugly dish if it tastes great. But as mentioned, this restaurant is selling an image as much as it’s selling food, and this was the only thing we were served all night that was out of focus.

Chicken Piccata – $37.00
Parmesan breaded chicken breasts served with lemon caper pasta and arugula

Chicken piccata is a favorite of mine; I often order it, and I also make it. The Cake Bake Shop’s version was top-notch, with a deeply browned, crispy crust and a lemony butter sauce that clung to both the pasta and the chicken. The arugula was lightly dressed, and here was the Parmesan that I missed on the Caesar salad. Mixing the capers into the pasta instead of sprinkling them on the chicken was a nice touch that invited you to go for the complete bite.

Grilled Salmon Sandwich – $35.00
Served warm on a soft brioche bun, fresh basil, and our homemade basil aioli. Served with an arugula salade. 

I had a pretty thick filet, and the cook was perfect. It was just a little crispy on the outside, moist, luscious, and flaky on the inside. The kind of moist and luscious that you get when it’s cooked through and pink everywhere, but just barely past being rare. Lightly seasoned, and the basil aioli was a great complement to fancy it up, as was the soft brioche bun. Don’t those french fries look good? They tasted pretty solid too.

Angel Hair Pomodoro – $25.00
Ripe tomatoes, basil, garlic, drizzle of olive oil. Served with toasted half French baguette and a side of Parmesan cheese.

The bite of red pepper took us by surprise here, since pomodoro isn’t typically spicy. Other than the unexpected spice level, the sauce was balanced, light, and fresh, a bit acidic but not enough to take off your stomach lining like a cheap marinara might. The pasta was perfectly al dente. This was a dish with all the comfort value of spaghetti and red sauce, but like so many others here, it rose above its simplicity to be simply delicious.

Dessert

Raspberry Champagne Cake – $22.00
Vanilla cake brushed with a French champagne simple syrup, filled with our Raspberry Pixie Jam™ and fresh raspberries. Frosted with our champagne vanilla buttercream and topped with fresh raspberries.
Lemon Blueberry Cake – $22.00
Lemon zest cake with fresh blueberries, filled with lemon curd and lemon buttercream. Topped with lemon buttercream and fresh blueberries.

The flavors in both pieces of cake were bright, with a beautiful sponge, contrast from the fruit, and a smooth, silky buttercream. Like most of the food, you could say, “It’s just good cake”; these aren’t cakes that are supposed to have complicated and transcendent flavors. But like the rest of the meal, it’s harder to make a cake of this quality than it looks. The slices are also huge; easily enough to share between two or three people. Or even four, if you just want a few bites.

Wrapping Up

There is no apparent logic in the pricing of this menu. A $25 Caesar salad? I don’t usually like to bring comparisons to other restaurant pricing, but Citricos (a Signature location!) has its famous seasonal strawberry salad priced at $17. And I like to think I’m good at seeing the big picture and the subtle argument, but there’s nothing I can say to justify the $22 price of those cake slices.

Now that I’ve dutifully slammed those eye-popping highs, I’ll note that the median entree is only $32, right in line with the nearby Disney World restaurants Trattoria al Forno and Ale & Compass. And here’s the thing. Just like in real estate, you need to know the market to know what’s a fair price; those other two mid-range restaurants on Crescent Lake are not its proper comparators for value.

A 3-course meal at the Cake Bake Shop Restaurant runs $70-90 on average; if you split a slice of cake, or order a dessert that isn’t cake, that drops to $60-80. Dinner at Cinderella Castle is $88, with fewer options in each course – and I’ll attest from experience that the food is fancier there, but it’s not higher quality. Akershus is $69, and Storybook Dining at Artist Point is $67. The Cake Bake Shop doesn’t have Meet & Greet photo ops, and it’s not built around Disney’s intellectual property, but it’s every bit as much selling a fairytale experience and not just a meal.

So is it worth it? Are American Girl Dolls worth it? That’s a decision for you, but I can tell you that the food was great.

Have you been to the Cake Bake Shop Restaurant? What did you think? Let us know in the comments!