Conca D'Oro Italian Pastry Shop — Restaurant in Union

We needed a cake for my 50th and we tested cakes from close to 10 local pastry shops. BTW - this is NOT a bakery (no bread | only sweets) it is a Pastry Shop!.

All of the local grocery stores make cakes. So we tried those. Most are good average cakes; not too great and not bad at all really. But we wanted something really special, right? So the average and ordinary just would not do.

We used the internet and looked up all the local shops and Conca D'Oro is right here in our neighborhood, and so if we found good quality delicious cakes, it would be so very convenient. We were glad to give it a try. Lucky for us we did.

When we entered and met the counter person and said we wanted to talk about a cake, she said it would be best to talk with Juan. He is the master of the shop. So he came out from the back to tell us about his specialties. We had just a moment to look across the glass cases to see rows and rows of pastries lined up on trays inside the refrigerated display. There must have been 3 dozen different kinds.

Once we said hello, Juan's descriptions were pleasant; not flowery or exaggerated. He stuck straight with the facts - just the items that belong to the recipe of each of the items we asked about. Just hearing the list of the ingredients made us eager to taste something. So we took several of each home in a medium size box. The main ones were the chocolate glazed eclair, the small strawberry tarts, tiny custart tarts with glazed fruit and also some cookies. When we asked him about the large lobster tails (baseball size pastry shells with ridges that all fan out in in one direction - one of my wife's ultimate favorites) Juan said he would be glad to fill them with whipped cream or fresh custard. We chose the custard!

Each little gem seemed to taste better than the one before. Everything was so light and bright and flavorful. It was just the last week of June and the heat was steamy, but the flavors were so crisp, we never noticed how quickly they were disappearing. And we each tasted one of each type. Well, okay...

We ATE THEM ALL UP!

Except for a couple of the larger lobster tails. They were too delicious to finish too soon... Oh, what a great afternoon that was!

Fortunately, we also took home a mini version of his "Signature Cake." There would be something to share with the rest of the family later that evening. The Conca D'Oro's signature cake is an Italian rum cake with three layers of cake and two filling layers. The first filling is freshly whipped cream with bananas; the second is strawberry chunks in chocolate flavored fresh whipped cream. The outside is lightly covered with even more cream and then sliced almonds decorate all the sides. It is so moist and flavorful and delicious -- it has to be one of the finest desserts that I have ever enjoyed.

So that is why my 50th birthday cake came from Conca D'Oro at 1039 Stuyvesant Avenue in Union, New Jersey.

The price is very reasonable - maybe even less than the chain stores. The cake was ready and was boxed immediately when we stopped on our way to the party. The decoration was elegantly done; strong caligraphy and well balanced colors. The box is properly arranged with the base board taped into the carton to avoid slippage. Service all the way to the door. Excellent!

I gave you the best picture that I could, but you owe it to yourself to give Conca D'Oro a try. We may even see each other there. I will be smiling.

Okay. I suppose that is all I have to say...

My cakes and Italian pastries have been purchased from this bakery since I could remember. Everything is home made and you can taste the quality of his products. Pastries are fresh and incredible!

In May, I got my wedding cake from here and it was incredible beyond words, inside and out!!! When my husband and I went to our cake tasting, we were impressed just by the first step. Juan asked us what we imaged for our wedding cake, appearance wise, how many people, etc. We wanted a different cake with dimension with both round and square cake layers and he was able to do that for us. We had what we thought would be our cake toppers, Mickey and Minnie bride and groom ears that were made from a vendor on Etsy and they were in fact way too big for the top of a cake. Juan made them fit perfectly on one of the cake layers- - it looked STUNNING!!! He decorated the cake so beautifully! It was elegant, classic and most importantly, flawless.

When we sat down to try the favors, Juan brought us a plate with many different fillings spooned around a mound of light and creamy buttercream. This was the hardest part considering they're all delicious and so fresh tasting! My favorite was the cookies and cream mousse- - heaven!! We wound up getting cannoli filling since my husband is obsessed with the cannoli filling which is so delicious. Hands down the best cannoli filling we have ever tasted. We paired it with the vanilla mousse which is the cookies and cream mousse minus the cookies. Now I'm very against fruit in cakes but Juan convinced me to try their imported Italian cherries which I was skeptical about since I don't like cherries. He put a little cake, cannoli filling, buttercream, and a cherry on a spoon and had me try it and it was so so good we wound up getting the cherries too!

When we had the favors chosen, he drew us up a little sketch of what the cake would look like and added a silver rhinestone trim. I could not wait to see it at that point. Juan is a great guy. So talented beyond words and takes great pride in his work.

Usually when you attend wedding and you see a cake it just looks like an ordinary wedding cake but not when you looked at ours! When our guests saw our wedding cake, they went up to it and would stare with an open mouth. It was stunning. I wish I would relive that moment again!!

Aside from their cake, some amazing things they carry in their store besides their fabulous cannolis are the "baba rum" little pastries that are SOAKED in a rum syrup with cannoli filling inside and their pignoli cookies. They're so soft in the inside and chewy on the outside. These two are my favorites. You can also get "cannoli snacks" which come with a bag of cannoli "chips" and a generous portion of cannoli filling in a plastic container they pipe in to order. Cannolis are also filled to order. You will NEVER get a soggy cannoli :)

Thank you Juan, we love...

My review gets 3 stars only because of the flavor/quality of the cake/pastries. Conca d'Oro made our wedding cake for our July 2016 wedding. It is one of three bakeries that our venue allowed us to choose from. We had our cake tasting with Juan and picked a delicious flavor, so we thought we made the right choice. When it came to the design, he pushed the upgraded "sugar flowers" (for an extra $100+) and we just went with it. I stressed to him several times that I wanted gold flowers, not yellow. I was concerned that the gold was going to look yellow, but he assured me it would be gold. He was very dismissive and slightly rude, but again, we just brushed it off because the bakery has a good reputation. The week before our wedding, I went to drop off our cake topper. Before I went, I called Juan to ask him to spray one flower for me, so I would be sure of the color, and he first said he couldn't do that for me (which I thought was ridiculous). But at the end of the conversation, he agreed to spray one for me, and he set a specific time for me to drop my cake topper off, so I'd meet with him and see the color. I showed up at the scheduled time and he wasn't there! The woman at the counter asked me to wait while she went to call him. She came back out and told me he had an emergency and that he would email me a picture of the flower. I clearly wrote my email and phone number down for her, yet received neither a call nor email from him. I called him back the day before my wedding, and still never hear from him! AWFUL customer service. The day of our wedding arrived and we went to see our cake before the reception began and I was in shock.. The flowers weren't gold, they weren't even yellow, they were ORANGE! I was burning up inside but knew I wasn't going to let that ruin my night. Luckily, my wedding coordinator overheard how upset I was.. She even said, "you wanted gold? This is orange!" Even she couldn't believe it. She walked over to the cake, ripped out the ugly orange sugar flowers that I paid extra for.. She went around to a few of my centerpieces, plucked some fresh flowers out, and redecorated the cake with the fresh flowers. It ended up looking so pretty, thanks to her expertise and quick thinking. I would only recommend Conca d'Oro for your wedding cake, if you don't care about the design. It will taste good but probably look like crap. Juan is rude, dismissive and has awful customer...