The Accidental Cheesecake Artist: How (bad) luck led to a new dessert hotspot for Columbus

One evening in late 2014, when Matt Estep was serving as the Sous Chef at Gallo’s Kitchen on Olentangy River Road, he had a problem.

The eatery learned that the ice cream they would normally serve for dessert wasn’t available, meaning a last-minute replacement dish was needed. And as customers had been asking about cheesecake, that’s what Estep decided to do.

There were a few issues in front of him, however. 

First, he was by no means a cheesecake expert at the time. He noted then he had “only a little experience” from briefly filling in or watching others bake. Secondly, and more pressing, there was an equipment issue.

“We didn’t have a blender,” Estep recalled with a laugh. “I would have to heat liquid or anything that was going into the cream cheese and beat it all together, like a giant mixing bowl. This meant we could only make one or two cakes at a time”

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His 11th-hour audible worked, and the cheesecakes became a hit at Gallo’s, where they’re still offered to his day. What’s more, it set Estep on a career path that would eventually lead to his very own Cheesecake concept: The Bearded Baker.

Estep worked for roughly three more years at Gallo’s, and had become the de-facto cheesecake-maker for the eatery after that fateful evening in 2014.

“From then on I did desert until I left,” he said with a laugh.

After several stints at other Columbus eateries, COVID hit, leaving him—like so many other Ohians—with an excess of free time. This let the Columbus restaurant veteran to hone his cheesecake craft, and eventually launch the Bearded Baker, which was formally created in the summer of 2021.

The concept, he said, started out with mostly custom orders. At the time, Estep was working at The Woodbury, which meant The Bearded Baker held pick-ups out of the Downtown eatery.

“It was a symbiotic relationship, really. People would come in to get their orders from me, and then a lot of them would stay for dinner,” he said.

Most recently, after becoming an employee of The Butcher & Grocer in the East Market, Estep officially took over the bakery portion of The Butcher & Grocer’s East Market location in early December (the artisan butcher currently operates multiple stalls in the Olde Towne East food hall), giving The Bearded Baker a brick and mortar home for the first time ever.

The up-and-coming cheesecake concept offers a rotating variety of flavors at the East Market (out of their 50 total cake styles), with sales currently seeing an even split between retail and wholesaling to local restaurants.

Estep plans to hang new signage shortly, after stocking his own display case full of Bearded Baker originals, for the first time ever.

“It’s great to finally have full control of my products, not saying that I didn’t have control of my process before,” Estep said “It’s just an awesome feeling, and I’m ready for it.”

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