Carlo's Bake Shop - Santa Monica

Saturday at 6pm no body in. I was very discouraged to go in. No customers is an opinion as taken from Shikspeer Shakespeare sleeping is an openion

What a little gem in Santa Monica. We walked right past this bakery, on our way to a donut shop, and after looking at their donuts, turned around and came right back. I’m so glad we did because this place is lovely. We ordered a classic eclair, pastry pocket and a rainbow cake slice. The rainbow cake was super cute and delicious but the pastry pocket was out of this world. I will be returning tomorrow to sample more pastry before I leave Santa Monica. Our total was $23 and worth every dollar.

With such a celebrity name, you would expect that it would be fresh and tasty. I really had high hopes but unfortunately, this was a huge letdown. FYI I was already suspect when I saw that the cake slices were in individual packages, that's a huge red flag. But nonetheless I was eager to try. We tried the red velvet cake, the carrot cake, strawberry and hazelnut eclair and the cannoli cheesecake.The red velvet was the best of all of them. It was moist, flavor was balanced and tasty and the cream cheese was light but decent.The carrot cake was dry, flavorless literally no spice no carrots and the cream cheese frosting was lacking.The eclairs were old, dry and the dough was bland. The filling was decent and the best was the strawberries and whip cream.The cannoli cheesecake was good but old and mushy. The two combined seem like they were fighting with each other rather than trying to harmonize.Staff were friendly and helpful. The store was clean. This was a once in a lifetime experience.

I was really looking forward to a lobster tail and was kinda disappointed. I mean, they prob ship the stuff frozen to CA; if they don't, that's what it tastes like..3 day old pastries that came out of the fridge. Ah well, one and done. Cheesecake was the best out of all the pastries we tried. Employees were friendly and the store was clean.

Expensive. $5-6 for a cannoli. Had the $4 cupcake it was not too sweet and the frosting was well balanced. Nice decor.