Emily’s Café & Desserts – 4901 Springarden Drive

Located in the former kitchen of the stone Ruscombe mansion, just off of Greenspring Avenue, Emily’s Café & Desserts is technically in the neighborhood of Cold Springs, but with its mouth watering desserts, deliciously healthy soups, and proximity to Mt. Washington, this eatery is both close enough and good enough for Mt. Washington to claim as its own.  The absolute best reason to visit Emily’s is for the baked goods.  Only 24 years old, Emily is an artist with an oven.  In her bakery, which is literally right next door to the café (in the mansion’s former carriage house), Emily churns out amazing cupcakes, cookies and cakes.  Most of these items are headed for local groceries and restaurants like Wegmans, Whole Foods, Roots Market, and the Yabba Pot, but enough fresh baked items are siphoned off for the café to stock a full display case.  The unique thing about Emily’s baked goods, and everything else on the Café menu, is that they are vegan.  There are no meat or dairy products in anything that Emily sells.  But this has not diminished the items’ taste, in fact it seems to have improved it.  Everything Emily bakes has an unexpected deepness and richness with startling bursts of flavor.

But Emily’s is not only about desserts.   Open five days a week for breakfast and lunch and Sundays for Brunch, Emily’s offers a full range of vegan fare.  The lunch menu, which changes almost daily, offers seasonal gluten-free soups, sandwiches, and salads as well as hot entrees.  On a recent visit, I had a bowl of cremini mushroom herb soup that was infused with a wonderful dark-forestry sweetness.

Emily’s Café & Desserts is the brainchild of Emily Mainquist and her husband Paul Dabrowski.  Emily is the baker and has been selling her creations since high school.  Paul is a born businessman and entrepreneur who dreams of ways to expand the family business while working at his day job.  Tired of running the bakery from a church kitchen, Emily and Paul first moved into the Ruscombe Mansion carriage house.  The one room building proved perfect as a bakery and Emily was soon cranking out her vegan and gluton-free cakes, donuts and other sweets.  When the former kitchen of the mansion came up for rent, Emily and Paul took the next logical step and started their Café.

Not content to sit still for long, Emily and Paul’s next plan is to create and market a line of gluten-free vegan soups.  The soups will be packaged in 32 ounce mason jars and will probably include a carrot bisque, a faux crab, and a fennel offering.  The jars will have a label specifying the ingredients, and the health benefits that each ingredient offers.

For more information visit www.emilysdesserts.com

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