Our Story

Award-winning pastry chefs Michael Jones and Bart Utz first met when both were enrolled in South Seattle Community College taking  pastry and specialty baking courses.  However, they didn't strike up a friendship until much later when Michael hired Bart to help out in a Queen Anne bakery he was purchasing. When that  purchase failed, the two decided to pool their talents, resources, impressive experience, and love of pastries to start their own business, like their cakes, "from scratch." As Bart puts it, "it was Phoenix rising from the ashes."

They baked and decorated their first gorgeous wedding cake as Crème de la Crème in 1998 and haven't stopped baking and decorating some of Seattle's most popular cakes since. While the business was becoming established,  both worked day jobs at well-known Seattle establishments such as the Washington Athletic Club, where Michael served as Executive Pastry Chef off and on for 16 years. Bart's extensive resume includes several bakeries, hotels and the Sunset Club, where he was employed five years.  

The one constant after Bart and Michael created Crème de la Crème was their desire to become a full-fledged, self-supporting business providing some of the tastiest, as well as most beautiful, wedding cakes offered in the Seattle area. (The two have never been afraid to back up the tasty claim - almost since its inception Crème de la Crème has invited all prospective clients to cake-tasting parties where they can let their palates decide for them which delicious flavor to choose.)

 Seven years ago, Bart and Michael realized the dream. They bought a commercial space in Renton that ended years of creating and delivering cakes and pastries out of a rented space in Kent while working at day jobs in Seattle. Crème de la Crème, already becoming a recognized name and voted by Seattle Weekly readers as Seattle's best wedding cake, truly came into its own. Bart quit his day job almost immediately after the move, and Michael turned his full-time attention to Crème de la Crème after the first year.