PRETTY
SWEET Delicious —
and gorgeously
decorated — treats
at Cakes
By Nerwan in Astoria
14 AUGUST 2 0 1 9
FOOD +DRINK
BY JESSICA MILITELLO It’s hard not to take a peek through the
white-trimmed windows that make up
the façade of Cakes By Nerwan as you
pass by the new 31st Street bakery.
Open the French door, and you’ll find a
shop filled with pink chairs and marble
tables below a neon cursive sign that
reads, “Sweet Dreams are Made of These,” an
allusion to the freshly made, delicately decorated
sweets displayed in a glass case in front
of a wall of pink flowers and trinkets.
The bakery is a family business co-owned
by chef Nerwan Khalife, her sister, Razan
Khalife, and their mother, Aida Khalife. The
storefront is the fruition of seven years of
building a client base through social media
and word of mouth about Khalife’s tasty
creations.
“I posted my cakes and people started
following me and ordering,” said Khalife, a
French Culinary Institute graduate. “We really
built our clientele and I started to get a
few celebrities here and there. I had a lot of
customers that didn’t want to wait for a special
occasion to have cake. People started
wondering if I would open a storefront, so
my clients really pushed me.”
When she eventually opened her shop,
the interior décor was just as aesthetically
pleasing as the beautiful sweets — and just
as Instagrammable. The platform certainly