In college, Warren Brown, the owner of popular U St. bakery Cakelove, was that guy who woke at noon on Saturday mornings and, still hung-over from the night before, shopped for the evening’s meal.
“My friends brought the beer or wine if we had it, and we always had it,” he smiled. “And they always offered to do the dishes for me.” He kept his pots in a huge duffel bag in his miniscule dorm room at Brown and cooked in his hall’s communal kitchen.
“I cooked for years and got to know a lot about savory cooking, but I knew if I was going to call myself a foodie, I had to know about baking too,” Brown explains. He started with cakes, moving to pies and then cookies, but he always returned to cakes, which he enjoyed the most.
Experimenting with a basic recipe, he gave the cakes to his friends and co-workers as he went. They always told him he should sell his cakes, but Brown never really took them that seriously. He finally gave in to curiosity and checked out the competition, and realized that he could do it and do it better; he was more creative and he used better ingredients.
“Did you know that more than 90 percent of bakeries don’t use butter in their buttercream?” he asked, horrified and deeply disappointed.
“Sure, we could make a cheaper cake by making them only two layers,” he said, but ardently insisted, “I believe in a certain cake to frosting ratio. Just look at that.” He pointed at a Lemon Swirl cake: three tall layers of cake brushed with lemon liqueur, dripped with lemon curd and liberally iced with thick vanilla buttercream.
Warren quit his job as a lawyer to open Cakelove, which, since its opening, has not left the limelight. He has since opened the neighboring, by-the-slice cafe and coffee shop, Lovecafe. People simply can’t get enough cake, and definitely can’t get enough of Warren. He’s tall and slim, with little plastic framed glasses and hair twisted into skinny dreadlocks. His good looks and inspirational career drew attention when he was named one of People’s most eligible bachelors in 2001.
“I got some interesting emails and phone calls,” he said, desperately trying to be gracious. More useful attention came from the Washington Post and on an Oprah show titled, “What should I do with my life?”
“So many people in this city are miserable with their jobs,” he said in explaining the media’s fascination. “They just like hearing about someone with passion, who feels connected to people.”
“I want it to be relaxed and comfortable, so people can bring their work, their kids, their friends and just relax,” he explained. “We leave them alone.” Warren smiles and chats with almost everyone who enters Lovecafe. The warmly painted cafe wraps around the corner, the walls lined with window seats. There is free wireless internet, and most people stay and work for hours at a time, settle with their kids in a window seat or simply chat with friends. And as for the cake?
“I’m always getting better, improving my skills,” he said. “Sure, I like making something and pointing at it, but I love eating what I make more.”
