Cake Designers Open Kailua Studio
By Melissa Moniz
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Cakelava, a locally owned design company known for its fabulous custom cakes, recently opened the doors to its new Kailua studio.
After two years working out of a culinary kitchen incubator at Pacific Gateway Center, husband-and-wife owners Rick and Sasha Reichart are delighted to now have a place to call their own.
“Having our studio is night and day,” said Sasha, who runs the administrative, marketing and customer relations half of the business. “With a shared space it was hard to predict how much time we were going to need, and a lot of it’s out of our hands because we had to rely on other people who were not always reliable.”
The new studio, previously occupied by Paprika Inspired Mediterranean Cuisine, means another level of professionalism that cakelava has already worked so hard to create.
With a reputation for some of the most artistic and delicious cakes on Oahu, the Reicharts hope the new studio will help them expand on their innovative approach, where the sky is the limit.
“If you can dream it, we can do it,” said Sasha. “Bring us your wildest, most romantic ideas!”
This can-do attitude is from Rick, the man behind-the-scenes who designs and creates all the cakes. With more than 15 years’ experience in cake design and pastry, plus his artist background as a painter, Rick has the tools and talent to create just about any cake. He has done everything from a Palmolive dishwashing detergent bottle to a Louis Vuitton purse, a football helmet and his current project: Aloha Stadium.
“Rick often gets called Hawaii’s Ace of Cakes,” said Sasha, a Punahou graduate. “He gets that comparison all the time. But, the Food Network has been great because it introduced people to the idea of custom cakes. Rick has even been invited to the Food Network’s Extreme Cake Challenge. But we had to turn it down because we’re a very small company, and we already had events booked.”
Rick also is a whiz at baking - not the usual chocolate cake with a cream filling, but Hawaii 5-0, a chunky pineapple cake layered with fresh bananas, mango curd, coconut cream and shredded coconut, or the Kona Toffee Crunch, a white or chocolate sponge cake with Kona coffee-soaked layers and filled with Kona coffee cream and toffee pieces.
“We have a very good reputation for the taste of the cakes,” Sasha added. “We make the cakes totally from scratch, no cake mixes are used. We don’t use any ready-made fillings. For the butter cream we use no shortening, it’s all butter. And we don’t use any (artificial) flavoring.”
As cakelava’s entire work force, the duo limits their workload to about 10 cakes per week. Although it does sometimes mean turning away orders, Sasha said the company will not “take on any more cakes if it means sacrificing someone else’s cake.”
“Our goal is not to be huge,” she explained. “We want to offer the best possible quality.”
Located at 35 Kainehe St. Suite 107-108, cakelava is open by appointment only and delivers their cakes and cupcake creations anywhere on the island. To view their work, visit www.cakelava.com
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