She’s the pastry chef who collaborated with one of Australia’s best chefs on the
“dessert trolley of dreams” that infiltrated Instagram feeds a few years ago.
Then she began delivering “those cakes your friend told you about” across Melbourne.
Now Rosemary Andrews,
formerly
head pastry chef of Attica Summer Camp,
has opened her own cake store,
in malvern, melbourne
Mietta
by Rosemary.
“I chose the name Mietta, an Italian word that translates to sweet little thing,
and Rosemary, which means remembrance,” says Rosemary.
“If you reverse that I translate it to ‘Remember the sweet little things in life’,
DESCRIBED AS A PASTRY CHEF WEAPON TO
SOME OF AUSTRALIA’S BEST CHEFS
AND ONE WHO TOLD BROADSHEET
HER LEMON TART,
“WAS THE BEST HE’S EVER EATEN.”
“THIS MALVERN CAKE SHOP MIGHT JUST BE THE SWEETEST
(AND MOST ANTICIPATED) OPENING OF 2023.”
GOOD FOOD, AUSTRALIa
Following years of baking every afternoon after school and delivering her goodies to neighbours, Rosemary began work in a commercial kitchen in 2007 at the age of 16. It wasn’t long before she decided to follow her career ambitions and make the move from small-town Tasmania to Melbourne in 2012.
Since then, Rosemary has refined her craft working in a variety of the best-known bakeries and restaurants in Melbourne, from EZARD, Dinner By Heston Blumenthal, Rockpool Bar & Grill, Spice Temple, Bistro Guillaume, Rosetta, Laurent Bakery, Cobb Lane Bakery, Hazel Restaurant, Laurent Bakery to Tivoli Rd Bakery. In 2016, she spent three months working in London at Gordon Ramsay, The Ledbury and Dinner by Heston Blumenthal.
During Melbourne’s 2020 lockdown, Rosemary worked at Attica during its take-away period, baking thousands of cheesecakes, cakes and desserts, before being offered the role of Head Pastry Chef of Attica Summer Camp. Rosemary led a team of pastry chefs and collaborated with one of Australia’s best chefs, Ben Shewry, on the beautiful and nostalgic dessert trolley.
When Summer Camp ended in 2021, and lockdown hit Melbourne again, Rosemary did a week-long Bake Shop at Attica before she started baking her sweets and selling them via Instagram.
For the past two years, Rosemary has continued to bake her dessert collections for adoring Melburnians while working on her plans for Mietta by Rosemary, which opened on December 9, 2023 at 23 Glenferrie Road, Malvern, Melbourne.
Mietta by Rosemary will have a strong focus on Rosemary’s signature layer cakes – the Honey-Misu layer cake, 8 Layer Carrot Cake and Honey, Espresso and Dulce de Leche layer cake – as well as her other favourite desserts, including Dulcey Baked Cheesecake, two-texture Valrhona Chocolate Cake and Lemon Tart. Other baked items Rosemary has been working on and her famed focaccia will also be making an appearance.
Another new addition, and one she’s excited about, is a soft-serve machine.
“We’ll be serving vanilla soft-serve made using Gippsland Jersey milk with Valrhona chocolate sauce at the opening,” says Rosemary. “And unlike the last pop-up, I’ll be ready for the rush, with more than a thousand slices of cake available when the doors open, along with the focaccia slabs, ice-creams and Market Lane coffee.”
The thought processes, finesse, detail and restaurant-style finishes behind each baked item are pure art, so Rosemary engaged local design studio Golden to collaborate on the store's fit-out. It is a refined, elegant and minimal space that doesn’t steal focus from the hero: the cake display.
“A soft palette was used alongside marble and gold to reference Parisian patisseries,” says Rosemary. “Fixtures, including wall lights, custom shelving and floral displays, are layered in the space, to mirror the way my cakes are made. Then I’ve added elements, like a wall of handmade flowers, that reflect my own personality.
“When I started my dessert box business during lockdown, my goal was to make people feel joy, to bring them happiness. Bringing joy to people is one of the main reasons I love being a pastry chef. Mietta reflects my career and what I am about – quality, delicious cakes that deliver happiness.
“Mietta is also a good opportunity to evolve from the Instagram platform to see how the community support responds long-term to a bricks-and-mortar pop-up business. Hopefully, it will be a stepping stone to another property and my dream bakery.”
A cHEF’S PASSION TO THE CRAFT.
Rosemary has travelled to Europe on several occasions seeking inspiration and creativity from the chic patisseries and boulangeries of Paris and London, seeking the best baked goods and training her palate to learn the finesse of European baking art.
Rosemary spent three months in London in 2016 where she staged at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, The Ledbury and Dinner by Heston Blumenthal working in the pastry sections.
Rosemary also attended bread and pastry courses during her time at Bread Ahead Baking School in Borough Market in London.
"I loved my experience staging in London. It was definitely an eye-opening experience for me. I spent a month at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in the pastry section, which was an absolutely amazing experience. The Head Chef is Australian and that was truly inspiring to a young chef coming from Australia and Chef Patron was a female three starred Michelin chef - absolutely wealth of knowledge, and to see that standard of dining in London was incredibly valuable learning curve to me.
I was offered work at these restaurants, and considered the two-year move, but ultimately I decided to return home to my partner, and started working at Dinner by Heston in Melbourne.”
