Cielo in the Adelaide Arcade is closing but the cakes will live on
Cielo is closing its doors this Saturday, but owner Chaveli Goya tells CityMag a new iteration of the brand will be opening very soon.
When Chaveli Goya announced in April via Instagram that her tea room Cielo would be closing its doors in the Adelaide Arcade, regular customers were heartbroken.
This coming Saturday will be Cielo’s last day in the Adelaide Arcade.
“The thought of closing Cielo has really never come to mind until having my son River,” Chaveli tells CityMag.
“I technically didn’t stop working until the day I had [River], and then after I had him – even pretty much hours after I had him – I was still getting phone calls and paying bills and making sure I was doing invoicing.
“I felt like I couldn’t really be present in some of the moments that I should have just cherished with him.
“I just started to realise that my focus was so involved in Cielo, and I couldn’t give that my whole energy naturally, because obviously I’m now busy with a baby.”
But Chaveli says she “didn’t want to lose what it was at its best”.
“I felt like the right time to have that pause was now,” she says.
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Last year, Chaveli started Nanna’s Bake Club – a social community driven by a love of baking. This picture: Claudia Dichiera.
However, Chaveli says, “this is definitely not the end” and that “the best is still yet to come”.
In August, she will be opening a home bakery in the Adelaide Hills, offering a “Dutch door” experience, under the same name, Cielo. The home bakery will only open on Saturdays.
“It’s not like I shut my doors tomorrow and there’s nothing left of us,” Chaveli says.
“We’re continuing, but in different ways.”
This comes after Chaveli and her partner bought a 125-year-old cottage in the Hills – which they are currently renovating – that has a studio that they will turn into a bakery.
“[A Dutch door] is a very beautiful farm half door… you can open up the top half of the door so I could stand there, and people can just pick up their orders,” Chaveli says.
“On Saturdays, [people can] pick up a box or specials that we do on our website, and then people can place an order and collect.”
Chaveli says this is something that is “a little bit more low scale, instead of having a shop front every single day”.
“This is so I can be present [in the bakery] for a few days a week, and then the other days, I’ll just be a mum.”
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Although the menu isn’t finalised, Chaveli assures us many of the Adelaide Arcade classics will be making their way up to the Hills.
“We’ll be offering our classic chiffons… there’ll be lots of cake slices,” Chaveli says.
“We’ll obviously be doing custom cakes still. We’ll most likely be doing our cinnamon scrolls – lots of offerings at the moment.
“We will be changing the menu up every month or every few weeks, and then still doing custom cake orders and wedding cakes and stuff like that, because I know that that’s obviously very seasonal.”
This picture: Ben Kelly.
Chaveli says the original tea blends Cielo is known for will now be a separate offering, given the home bakery doesn’t include the experience of a tea room like the Adelaide Arcade shop front.
But Chaveli says this is “only temporary”.
“I definitely have some goals in the pipeline to open up a shop front again,” she says.
“I think I just need a couple more years doing the home bakery whilst I decide on the next step.”
When asked what she will miss most about her Adelaide Arcade abode, Chaveli says “probably everything”.
“I feel like it hasn’t really sunk in – how much I love and have loved the experience,” she says.
“I’m going to miss everything from the bad days to the really, really, really busy days, to the days where I’m like ‘oh my God, this workload is ridiculous’.
“It’s going to be a hard process after I shut my doors this Saturday.”
Cielo in the Adelaide Arcade will be open from today until Saturday from 8am until 3pm. The home bakery in the Adelaide Hills is slated to open in August.
Cielo is located at Adelaide Arcade, Shop 31, 112/118 Grenfell Street.
Connect with the business on Instagram for more.