Zest Fresh Patery

Gabriella is absolutely amazing to work with! I plan weddings for a living, so I had the pleasure of working with her for years before it came time for my own wedding. We honestly didn’t even look at any other bakeries since we knew Zest was who we wanted! We had a non-traditional small cake with a cheesecake on bottom and a carrot cake on top. Gabriella made it look amazing! Not to mention how fantastic all the other desserts she provided were as well! Especially the cake pops that we used as place card holders. People are still talking about them! If you are looking for visually stunning desserts that taste as good as they look, you have found the right place at Zest!

Zest did our cake for our art deco/Gatsby themed wedding and we couldn't be happier! It came out beautifully and was so delicious. This was a relief to find, as our first cake vendor didn't work out, and we had to scramble last minute to find a new one. We are excited to eat the rest of the cake on our anniversary!

Yesterday for my birthday my husband got a cake for me. I want to start off by saying we had the same cake in April and it was amazing. I even wrote them that day to tell them how fabulous the cake was. Well my cake was not. The cake was dry… the frosting was pure butter and a bit hard. None of us ate our pieces. The cake literally went in the trash. I wrote and email last night and was expecting to hear something back. I didn’t hear anything from them (no biggie) so I decided to call. I spoke to the owner and explained. She stated “I had to go out and get special sprinkles for you cake” on top of saying that they haven’t changed their recipe of the cake and frosting. She said she pays her employees well and they won’t get the labor back. She offered to give me half off my next purchase. Then offered to give me the other half in a gift card. To be honest I didn’t want either. I wanted a refund as the cake wasn’t eaten and not because we didn’t want to. I have been going there for years and never had any issues really. But this is not how to do business. As I told the owner, offereing to make me a new cake would have been better and maybe apologizing that the cake wasn’t good. Basically saying our recipe is our recipe and it’s good and your taste buds are off…. We all four had the same cake in April and it was amazing and to have my birthday come and be excited to be super disappointed and then have that interaction with the owner… I won’t be going back. Sad because that not usually how zest is.

There are so many things that I love about this place I'm not entirely sure where to start.... The shop is located inside of an old mill. The co-owners are really great people and they just opened up another bakery on the West Coast recently. I typically purchase a minimum of $25 worth of goodies every time I'm there in the form of sweet and savory scones, macaroons, brownies, cookies, coffee, quiche, cinnamon buns, and/or marshmallows. They also make wedding and birthday cakes and have cupcakes. I asked if a specialty cake (Ube cake - purple Filipino cake) could be made and they made it. It exceeded my expectations and was delicious!! Many of the ingredients they use is from local farms within CT & RI. I love how they support the farms.

After other plans did not come together, we needed a small wedding cake last minute. 9 days before our wedding, my mother-in-law took charge on the hunt for a bakery that could fit us in and Zest came through. When my mother-in-law sent me the link to their site and said they were available I was cautiously optimistic, and then when I gave them a call, I got really excited. Despite the time crunch they made the whole process fun and easy. They talked me through different sizes and flavor ideas and emailed with me about designs until we had the perfect cake planned. And it really was the perfect cake. It looked beautiful and tasted absolutely amazing! We had to put off our big wedding due to covid, and after our experience with Zest for our small wedding, we are definitely planning to use them again next year.