When Margie Axelrod bought the Casa Dolce bakery at 5732 Mayfield Road, Mayfield Heights, about 3 ½ years ago, she set about to express her passion for all food, not just dessert.
The result: a café, bakery and takeout shop with more than 50 food choices, from seared sea scallops and complicated appetizers to an array of traditional Italian favorites and seasonal comfort dishes, like meatloaf.
“We added lots of food because I’m a chef,” Axelrod said. “I’m Italian. I just cook!”
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She also teaches a monthly cooking class, except in summer.
Besides daily specials, she always cooks Italian wedding soup. “We’d get yelled
at if we didn’t have it,” she said. Same goes for angel hair pasta nests with homemade marinara sauce.
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The real showstoppers, however, are the display cases laden with pastries of all kinds, including near-legendary luscious slices of almondy white cake with white frosting like Hough Bakery used to make.
A separate display case is stacked with colorfully frosted specialty cakes including lemon pistachio torte, pina colada cake, and the perennial favorite, cassatta cake – both Italian style and Cleveland style. The difference? Custard and strawberries for Cleveland style versus chopped almonds, ricotta, chocolate candied cherries and rum syrup for Italian style.