The forecast for Saturday is cloudy with a chance of cake as Rosemary Andrews – the pastry chef behind Attica Summer Camp’s daydream-worthy dessert trolley and the Instagram bakery and pop-ups that followed – opens her bricks-and-mortar cake shop, Mietta by Rosemary.

She knows from experience just how cake-crazed Melburnians can be, so she’s baking up a storm at the Malvern shopfront in anticipation. “I was blown away by the interest and support for the cakes in my first pop-up ... and didn’t expect the line at all,” she says. “But I’m going to be prepared this time, with upwards of 1000 slices.”

Her headline acts include an eight-layer carrot cake with luscious white chocolate and cream cheese frosting; a similarly lofty honey-misu cake that went gangbusters when she first launched it in her dessert boxes; and a decadent negroni-spiked chocolate tart. They’ll all be available by the slice on opening day, alongside around 20 other creations.

Andrews has some new tricks up her sleeve, too. “I cannot wait to swirl the soft-serve machine – I’ve had [it] in my business plan for so long,” she says. The first flavour is a classic: vanilla, its soft peaks adorned with a sundae sauce made of Valrhona chocolate.

And to balance out all the super-sweetness? There’ll also be slabs of focaccia.

Mietta will be around for a good time, but not necessarily a long time, with Andrews only signing a short-term lease on the store on Glenferrie Road, near Malvern Central shopping centre.

“Opening Mietta is a huge moment and change in my career – a make-or-break situation, as such – and I’m giving it a six-month whirl to see how it goes.”

But she’s still managed to make the space her own. After consulting local firm Design by Golden, the shop – like Andrews’s cakes – feels undeniably elegant, with marble and gold flourishes throughout, and a handmade French-inspired flower wall.

Andrews’s cake deliveries gained traction in lockdown, so Mietta will also allow her to put faces to the names lighting up her Instagram DMs. “I’m excited to meet everyone and thank them in person for all the support and encouragement they’ve given me.”

Mietta by Rosemary opens on Saturday, December 9 at 10am.

Open Fri-Sun from 10am until sold out.

23 Glenferrie Road, Malvern, miettabyrosemary.com.au