City: Kansas City, MO

Category: Restaurants

Telephone: (913) 341-0300

Address: 10573 Mission Rd.

Description: The shop’s name is a mouthful, but so is the pain au chocolate when you try to consume an entire warm, flaky roll of heaven all at once. We have a general rule about never partaking of pastries baked by anyone this tiny, but rules are meant to be broken. The darling Natasha received her diploma from the French Culinary Institute in New York before returning to Kansas City to open a wedding cake business with her mother, Vicki. A year later, the duo created a cute bakery shop on 39th Street’s Restaurant Row before packing it up for a grander (and much more girly) setting in the posh Mission Farms center. Now there’s even more room for the tender croissants, delightful cupcakes and macaroons, the impossibly good pain au chocolate, and a dizzying assortment of cookies, all from scratch. Natasha recently added ice creams in luscious flavors like red currant pear sorbet, and an espresso bar that opens at 7 a.m. It’s a lovely way to spend the morning with a cup of espresso or hot chocolate and a flaky pastry, either in the sunny lounge or flower-filled sidewalk patio. Tasha’s weddings cakes, however, are what put her on the map; she crafts exquisite flowers out of sugar and fondant that threaten to take the spotlight away from the bride’s gown. Visit www.natashagoellner.com for information on her cakes.