18 Top-Rated Spots To Grab Cake In Chicago
When it comes to dining in Chicago, savory and meaty fare like burgers and deep-dish pizza tend to take top billing, but the Second City still saves room for its sweet tooth. As a dedicated cake connoisseur who went to culinary school in Chicago and lived there for 13 years, I'm no stranger to the city's sweets scene, and particularly the copious pastries and desserts found throughout its bakeries. Over the years, and on return visits to my home city, I always make sure to save room for dessert — especially cake.
Like deep-dish and steak, Chicago tends to go unabashedly big with its food, and that sentiment certainly holds true with cake. In bakeries and restaurants alike, dexterous and whimsical pastry chefs put their stamp on the Americana confection by layering, frosting, and sprinkling any number of vibrant and flavorful creations. From pitch-perfect tres leches and a Presidential-approved caramel cake to super-stacked desserts with as many layers as the Willis Tower has floors, these are the 18 best places to grab cake in Chicago.
Loaf Lounge
As the name implies, loaves of bread may get a lot of attention at this sunny Avondale venture from husband-wife team Sarah Mispagel-Lustbader and Ben Lustbader, but the seasoned duo are just as adept at their sweets at Loaf Lounge as well — particularly evidenced by a chocolate cake so iconic it showed up in season one of "The Bear." It's not too often you get the chance to eat a cake on TV.
The wildly popular, super-rich chocolate cake is available to pre-order in its entirety, or you can simply snag a slice. Courtesy of Mispagel, who designed the desserts for the smash-hit TV show, said cake features layers of fluffy chocolate mousse stacked between chocolate cake and finished with a creamy chocolate frosting. It's practically Emmy-worthy.
(773) 904-7852
2934 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618
Brown Sugar Bakery
When presidents and vice presidents visit Chicago, they tend to stick to fancy fine-dining restaurants downtown. But when a cake is as good as the caramel version famously served at Brown Sugar Bakery, you're bound to attract a politician or two. The homey Grand Crossing institution earned considerable — and deserved — fanfare when Vice President Kamala Harris paid a visit in 2021, clearly having heard all the hype surrounding the cake.
Brown Sugar Bakery's rich caramel cake is a moist four-layer cake striated with thick caramel frosting that's come to be regarded as one of the city's signature dishes, and it helped earn Stephanie Hart a semifinalist nod from the James Beard Foundation. While the caramel cake is certainly a worthy stat, Brown Sugar Bakery specializes in other exemplary slices, like German dark chocolate, lemon, and pineapple-coconut. There's even an Obama cake made with red velvet, chocolate, and yellow cakes, cream cheese frosting, chocolate drizzle, and pecans.
(773) 224-6262
328 E 75th Street, Chicago, IL 60619
Mindy's Bakery
Among the most acclaimed pastry chefs in the country, taking home a recent win from the James Beard Foundation for Outstanding Pastry Chef, Mindy Segal is the mind behind her namesake Bucktown bakery, which builds off her previous restaurant, HotChocolate, and doubles down as a full-fledged epicenter of desserts.
HotChocolate's closing a few years ago allowed Segal to focus on what she does best: baking. In addition to breakfast pastries and pies aplenty, this includes a focus on decadent, extravagant cakes, from morning coffee cake to afternoon affairs like chocolate buttermilk cake with hot fudge and chocolate buttercream and brown sugar cake with butterscotch buttercream. Menu specials rotate frequently, so keep your eyes peeled for innovations like banana split cake and chocolate stout cake too.
(773) 489-1747
1623 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647
Good Ambler
The sweetest addition to the booming Fulton Market district, Good Ambler is a new-ish entry that doubles as a cafe, bakery, and chocolatier — all under the direction of recently named pastry chef Meg Galus. After acclaimed stints manning dessert menus at local fine dining standbys like BOKA, Galus signed on as Good Ambler's executive pastry chef in September, upping the ante on the bakery's breadth of baked goods and cakes.
In addition to a slew of morning pastries, cookies, and pies, Galus bakes a portfolio of exciting cakes, including a Chocolate Obsession cake (devil's food cake with dark chocolate fudge ganache and gold and silver accents), a Confetti Birthday cake with vanilla Swiss buttercream, and the Golden Salted Caramel with yellow butter cake, vanilla buttercream, salted caramel, and crispy chocolate pearls.
Good Ambler
(312) 872-7165
216 N Peoria St, Chicago, IL 60607
Bittersweet Pastry Shop & Cafe
Marking an impressive 30 years in business and on the cusp of expansion to Pilsen, Lakeview's Bittersweet Pastry Shop & Cafe has stood the test of time to become one of the most enduringly beloved bakeries in town — and a lot of that can be attested to its famed cakes.
The cute cafe, perpetually chic and twee, serves a full menu of savory and sweet fare, but the cakes play a starring role in its reputation. In addition to cheesecakes, tortes, and soufflé cakes, Bittersweet specializes in elaborate cakes, which more resemble works of frosted art than standard desserts. Options rotate throughout the seasons but run the gamut from a ube Dio de los Muertos cake, a hazelnut raspberry cake, to tiramisu, cookies & cream, and key lime. Of course, you can't go wrong with a classic, either, like Bittersweet's four-layer German chocolate.
Bittersweet Pastry Shop & Cafe
(773) 929-1100
1114 W Belmont Ave, Chicago, IL 60657
Kristoffer's Cafe & Bakery
A longstanding fixture in Pilsen, the cozy Kristoffer's Cafe & Bakery is among the very best in town for Mexican-style desserts — including a famed tres leches cake that's so good it prompted celebrity chef Rick Bayless, behind award-winning Mexican institutions like Topolobampo, to call it better than any tres leches he's eaten in Mexico. Believe the hype.
The modest cafe specializes in a few versions of its impossibly moist tres leches cake, comprised of a single layer of sponge-like cake that's soaked in flavors of coconut, eggnog, or Kahlua — all of which are perfectly paired with a mug of Mexican hot chocolate. For something a little more over-the-top, opt for the Chocoflan, a hybrid super-dessert that tops chocolate cake with a layer of caramel-kissed flan.
(312) 829-4150
1733 S Halsted St, Chicago, IL 60608
Jennivee's Bakery
Named for owner Jenni Vee, a trans Filipina baker with an eye for flair, Lakeview's Jennivee's Bakery is unlike most bakeries in town. Not only does it boast late-night hours until 11 p.m. most nights, but Vee features some of the most colorful confections in Chicago.
A literal rainbow of flavor, Jennivee's Bakery both pays homage to her Filipina heritage while adding flourish to Americana traditions. This includes one of her signatures, a Purple Velvet cake with ube frosting and macapuno (aka young coconut strings) filling. Jennivee's also sells exciting options in the Party Princess cake (vanilla funfetti cake, Swiss vanilla buttercream, and rainbow sprinkles) and a Brooklyn Blackout cake with dark chocolate cake, dark chocolate pudding, dark chocolate buttercream, and chocolate cake crumbs.
(773) 697-3341
3301 N Sheffield Ave, Chicago, IL 60657
Lost Larson
It's all about delicate, artful, and scratch-made baking at Lost Larson, a chic bakeshop with locations in Andersonville and Wicker Park. Courtesy of seasoned pastry chef Bobby Schaffer, who clocked time at Michelin-starred fine dining restaurants like Grace, the cafe features both American and Scandinavian sweets. Common menu items are cinnamon rolls and cardamom buns, lingonberry almond cake, and tebirkes, which are Danish poppy seed pastries. Then there's the majestic Princess cake.
A traditional Swedish cake, this thing looks nothing like your standard American fare but rather a marzipan-covered work of contemporary art. It features vanilla sponge cake on a crunchy almond base with raspberry-rose preserves, pastry chef, and whipped cream, all under a light-green marzipan dome with a pink-white chocolate "crown" befitting a princess.
(773) 944-0587
5318 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60640 (Additional location at W Division St)
Roeser's Bakery
One of the oldest family-run bakeries in Chicago, Roeser's Bakery has been a community cornerstone in Humboldt Park since 1911, when John C. Roeser Sr. started baking cakes, pastries, and bread from his modest storefront. Now in its fourth generation of Roeser ownership, those timeworn recipes and traditions are still going strong — including a slate of cakes that eschew pageantry or pretense in favor of tried-and-true Americana and comfort.
This is the kind of homespun bakery where the flavors and frosting all look familiar but taste far fresher. In addition to custom cakes for weddings, birthdays, and celebrations, Roeser's features in-store regulars like tortes and layer cakes — the latter of which runs the gamut from caramel to orange crunch, devil's food, coconut, and chocolate cream cheese bundt.
(773) 489-6900
3216 W North Ave, Chicago, IL 60647
Chiu Quon Bakery
Despite the fact that Chinatown's oldest bakery, founded in 1986, makes more than 100 items by hand each day, Chiu Quon Bakery doesn't cut corners with anything — including its kaleidoscopic cakes. Many folks flock here for the BBQ pork buns, the egg custard tarts, and the steamed egg yolk buns, but don't overlook the substantial cake selection, a sleeper hit amidst Chicago's cake scene.
As diverse and vibrant as the rest of the vast menu, Chiu Quon's cakes include flavors both familiar for an Americana craving (e.g. chocolate, strawberry) and those more indicative of its Chinatown address. There's a luscious mango mousse cake, an almond roll cake bursting with flavors of amaretto, and an egg custard roll cake, which nails the balance between sweet with a hint of savory
(312) 225-6608
2253 S Wentworth Ave, Chicago, IL 60616 (Additional location at W Argyle St)
The Goddess & Grocer
A Chicago institution and a veritable empire of city-wide markets and cafes, The Goddess & Grocer is the kind of sunny shop that all neighborhood cornerstones aspire to be. It's the type of place where you can swing by for sundries or lunch or simply pop in to satisfy a sweet tooth. And if it's dessert you're after, The Goddess has a particular penchant for cake.
Cookies, brownies, and cupcakes all get their share of the bakery case, but the signature Goddess cakes — along with rotating specialties and custom cakes — are the main attraction. These include the always-bright Goddess Rainbow cake, a six-layer spectacle of color with buttercream frosting and sprinkles, and the Chocolate Oreo cake with dark chocolate fudge and Oreo pieces, covered in cookies and cream buttercream. Be on the lookout for seasonal specials, too — a recent October cake special showed up in the form of a blood orange chocolate cherry cake.
(773) 342-3200
1649 N Damen Ave, Chicago, IL 60647 (Additional locations at N Larrabee St, N State St, W Randolph St, and O'Hare)
Sweet Mandy B's
If a school bake sale evolved into a pastel-hued bakeshop bursting with buttercream and sprinkles, it would be Sweet Mandy B's, the cutest bakery in Chicago. A Lincoln Park fixture since 2002, with a newer location in Streeterville, it's all about traditional comfort desserts at Sweet Mandy B's, which means sugary nostalgia like worms 'n' dirt, whoopie pies, cupcakes, pudding cups, and of course, cake slices galore.
The bakery always has a rotating roster of cakes available by the slice, but standard fodder includes classics like yellow cake with chocolate buttercream, chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream, and one with Oreo buttercream as well. Also, look for specialty items, like flourless chocolate cake with silken ganache and caramel-splashed turtle cheesecake.
(773) 244-1174
1208 W Webster Ave, Chicago, IL 60614
Bake
Like any good bakery worth its sugar, Bucktown's adorable — and aptly dubbed — Bake began as a familial passion project for husband-wife owners Jennifer Kane and Eric Estrella, both of whom started baking with their moms before working in kitchens all over the country. For them, it all came back to the simple comforts of classic American desserts — and that means cake.
Walking into the quaint bakeshop, customers are greeted with the wafting aroma of coconut macaroons, iced sugar cookies, and pumpkin bread. Then comes the sight of stunningly elaborate layer cakes clad in all manner of sprinkles, frosting, and candies. Whole cakes are baked to order, with select slices available as well. Flavors include classics like red velvet and cream cheese icing or an old-fashioned chocolate cake, but you can also choose from s'mores flavors to Nutella malt, rainbow, and chocolate chip cookie cakes as well. (That last one has cookies baked right into the vanilla cake with chocolate chip buttercream and cookie crumbs.) Vegan cakes are available, too.
(773) 384-7655
2246 W North Ave, Chicago, IL 60647
West Town Bakery
Artsy, funky, and kitschy, and with a few locations throughout Chicagoland, West Town Bakery is a hybrid shop that excels at comfort food in all forms. That includes savory breakfast sandwiches mixed alongside a bevy of baked goods, pies, pastries, and cake in slices and bite-sized form.
Signature cakes include triple chocolate, peanut butter cup, and chocolate raspberry, but the real treat here are the cake balls, which are doughnut hole-sized morsels made by rolling cake with frosting and coating them with various spices, crumbs, sprinkles, and cereals. The perfect two- or three-biter cake balls come in a dizzying array of flavors; you can taste cake crosses in the model of french toast, animal crackers, or Andies Mint. They're so popular they come in themed packs, like the Cereal Bowl Pack, a mix of cake balls flavored like Fruity Pebble, Captain Crunch, Special K, and Cinnamon Toast. Plus, they're available for nationwide shipping.
(847) 305-4100
3626 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60613 (Additional locations at N Milwaukee Ave, W Chicago Ave, East Ohio, and S Lasalle.)
Kasama
There's a lot to love about Kasama, the revered Filipino tasting menu restaurant in Ukrainian Village that earned husband-wife team Tim Flores and Genie Kwon a James Beard nod for Best Chef: Great Lakes in 2023. But by day, in addition to serving one of the city's foremost breakfast sandwiches, Kasama operates as a casual cafe slinging some exemplary cake.
Kwon presides over a wide array of pastries and confections that range from apple hand pies and black truffle croissants to foie gras Danishes. In terms of cake, she eschews American-style layer cakes in favor of an ube and huckleberry Basque cake, a thick pound cake-like creation filled with ube pastry cream and tart huckleberries. The result is one of the more unique cakes in Chicago, striking a balance between rich and tart, buttery and bright.
(773) 697-3790
1001 N Winchester Ave, Chicago, IL 60622
Publican Quality Bread
After operating as a wholesale business for several years and amassing citywide fans for its bread, Publican Quality Bread finally went brick and mortar in 2022, providing a permanent home base for baker Greg Wade's award-winning provisions. Naturally, bread is the main draw, but having a full-fledged storefront affords Wade the space to expand his offerings, including sweeter items like cake.
Come for the tartines, stay for dessert. And with so many sweets to choose from nowadays, that's easy to do. Although the cake isn't the focal point here, it's a matter of quality over quantity, and customers can rest assured that whatever versions Wade serves will be just as otherworldly as his loaves. Rotating seasonally, varieties include apple cake and ricotta cake, along with specials like the honey-kissed Beesting cake from Wade's own cookbook, "Bread Head."
Publican Quality Bread
(312) 605-1618
1759 W Grand Ave, Chicago, IL 60622
The Chicago Diner
It's a testament to the Chicago Diner, a famously meat-free diner since 1983, that its frills-free layer cakes can stand up to even the butteriest desserts in town. That's largely thanks to the diner's penchant for comfort and kitsch. Oh, and the fact that a lack of meat doesn't mean everything is light and vegetal. Along with savory options, like seitan-based chicken parmesan and burgers stacked with curried tofu patties, means cakes that don't skimp on the frosting.
As with much of its menu, most desserts are vegan, like the seasonal cheesecakes made with vegan cream cheese or the carrot cake, comprising thick layers of cinnamon cake studded with raisins and walnuts. For a straight-up chocolate bomb, the cocoa mousse cake piles layers of chocolate cake with a fluffy mousse filling and chocolate frosting. The cakes are so popular that they're even sold at local Whole Foods.
(773) 935-6696
3411 N Halsted St, Chicago, IL 60657 (Additional location at N Milwaukee Ave.)
Hendrickx Belgian Bread Crafter
What began as a love for bread for Renaud Hendrickx has evolved into a jewel box-sized bakery in the Gold Coast, where his illustrious and refined pastries and breads are as swanky as the high-end retail shops that surround it. Today, Hendrickx Belgian Bread Crafter is a beacon of European-style baking, where bread and croissants share the menu with housemade Belgian chocolates, sandwiches, and, indeed, cake.
Skewing, naturally, Belgian and French, cakes here include elaborate creations like the Nutcracker, a hazelnut génoise (a European-style sponge cake) with hazelnut pieces, buttercream, and hazelnut ganache, feuilletine, and praline. Then there's the Mignon Collection, a selection of four miniature cakes in flavors like Belgian dark chocolate, pistachio, mocha, and raspberry.
Hendrickx Belgian Bread Crafter
(312) 649-6717
100 E Walton St, Chicago, IL 6061