I’m often asked the best places to eat overseas. This takes the cake

Opinion

January 2, 2026 — 5:00am

People always ask me where to eat when they are going to Paris, New York or Hong Kong. I tell them the best bistros, Michelin-star diners and yum cha palaces. Then I pause for dramatic effect and reveal the really important stuff – where to find the best cake.

Great cakes are dripping with history, with backstories to rival Hollywood plots. They don’t require restaurant reservations or the endurance test of a long tasting menu to enjoy.

Some come with an historic setting of a grand cafe or hotel thrown in; others can be bought and taken to the nearest park bench. Wherever you have it, cake is the fastest, the most compelling, and often the cheapest way to get a taste of where you are.

The famous Sachertorte, for instance, will have you in a spin, deciding which of the two competing venues in Vienna do it best, the opulent Hotel Sacher or the ornate Cafe Demel. A rich, somewhat dry, chocolate cake with a glaze of apricot jam, it was created in 1842 by 16-year-old apprentice baker, Franz Sacher. His son, Eduard, refined the recipe while at Demel, later establishing the exclusive Hotel Sacher near the Vienna Opera House. A legal battle as to who holds the recipe copyright was resolved in favour of the Hotel Sacher, but both do it with great respect, and much cream.

It’s easier to settle on the (undisputed) source of the iconic Spanish burnt Basque cheesecake. Make a pilgrimage to the tiny La Vina pintxos bar run by Santiago (Santi) Rivera in San Sebastian in the Basque country, where the batter of cream cheese and eggs is baked in a wood-fired oven at such a high temperature the top and sides are blackened like the inside of an ancient chimney. Inside, all is soft, rich, creamy, and as light as a mousse.

You’d think fruit cake would be easy to find in Scotland, but I spent a miserable day wandering gloomy Edinburgh searching for my favourite Dundee cake. Failing miserably, I whinged to my Scottish friend Sue Lawrence, who wrote the book (literally) on Scottish baking. She scoffed. “You don’t go to Edinburgh for Dundee cake,” she said. “You go to Dundee!”

First made (in Dundee) by James Keiller using the surplus orange peel from making marmalade, this glorious fruit cake is chockers with dried fruits, the top encircled by almonds. If you’re not near Goodfellow & Steven in Dundee, who make a proper cake, then look online for Sue Lawrence’s recipe and make your own.

And could anyone leave the Black Forest region of south-western Germany without eating Black Forest cake? It isn’t allowed. Known as Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte, the tall chocolate sponge is layered with whipped cream and morello cherries, spiked with cherry schnapps and topped with more cream, more chocolate, and maraschino cherries.

Like a real forest, you could get lost in it, especially at the gorgeous Cafe Konig in Baden-Baden, where master chocolatier Volker Gmeiner makes a benchmark example.

For those who grew up with medovik, or Russian honey cake, it can be symbolic of home, family and heritage; sometimes poignant with a sense of loss. The eight layers of biscuit-like cake sandwiched with sour cream and burnt honey, are proudly recreated daily at Andrei Dellos’ lavish Cafe Pushkin in Moscow.

Just as evocative for those who have grown up with it is Pandan Chiffon Cake; impossibly tall, light, fluffy and airy. The mystical shade of green is from the juice of pandan leaves – one of the defining colours of Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian cuisines.

Its fairytale height is achieved by suspending the cake tin upside down as soon as it comes from the oven, a technique also used by makers of Italy’s tall, domed panettone. Try it at Singapore’s Bengawan Solo bakery, founded by Anastasia Liew in 1979.

Never mind the tulips and canals of Amsterdam, when you can go instead for a big wedge of Dutch apple cake. Those squishy layers of soft, chunky, cinnamon-scented apple packed inside a strong cakey crust are so filling, you may not be able to manage anything else.

So start with cake, just in case, especially at the humble Cafe Karpershoek, a warm and woody “brown bar″⁣ founded in 1606 and still going strong. Proof that the love of cake, for the people who believe in them, is one of life’s most enduring passions.

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