The Budapest Cake Tour is inspired by a common practice among specialty coffee shops to reward loyal customers; visitors can get a stamp card at any participating venue, and receive a stamp with every purchase. When the card is filled with stamps, they receive a free cup of coffee. Now, new-wave pastry shops and confectioneries also joined forces to announce a similar cake-themed initiative, which launched on Friday. Anyone with a sweet tooth just has to visit any one of the six confectioneries, and ask for a free BCT stamp card. Then, they “have to” eat cake at each of the pastry shops, and collect stamps from each one. Once they have a full card, they can return to their favorite place, where they will receive free cake. The good news: the stamp card is valid throughout 2016, so we have nearly an entire year to explore the treats of all six patisseries.
The owners came up with this sweet tour to set an example of collaboration – after all, they send customers to each other through this program. The one to first come up with the idea was Bea Borogdai, the owner of bicycle-rental company and cake shop Dynamobake, who maintains good relations with the owners of several cafés, and noticed that they recommend other places to their customers. In recent years, many confectioneries opened that have their desserts on sale at various cafés, as well. Bea got curious about these places, and with the help of gastro blogger Leopold Erika and based on their own criteria, they visited a few patisseries to ask whether they would want to take part in the Budapest Cake Tour.
According to Bea Borogdai, a characteristic that all the owners share is that they realized their dream. Their selection is quite different, and by making the customers realize just how diverse the sweets lineup of Budapest can be, everyone wins without having to compete with each other. When choosing the participants, the use of high-quality ingredients was a major consideration. The organizers chose places that make sophisticated and delicious desserts wholeheartedly, which probably wasn’t hard – after all, many owners of new-wave confectioneries gave up their previous career in order to live for their passion. The confectioneries taking part in Budapest Cake Tour are: Chez Dodo, Dynamobake, Édesem, Édes Sári, ÉdességLabor, and Zazzi.
