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Devil's Food in The Ultimate Food Lover's Guide
Gerald Shorey has served as pastry chef at some of Denver's culinary temples— Mel's, Starfish, and Tante Louise among them. His pastries have also had featured roles in the Brown Palace Hotel's vaunted high tea service. Since 1999, he has operated Devil's Food Bakery on lively Old South Gaylord in Denver's vibrant Washington Park neighborhood. A steady stream of residents stop in for pastry and coffee to kick off the day. "Open bright and surly" is one of the bakery's whimsical slogans. The bright is right, but the surly is morning humor.

People from outside of the neighborhood who come to shop often make the bakery part of their Old South Gaylord pilgrimages. Business is brisk all day, as customers arrive for midmorning pick-me-ups, noontime breaks when the accent is on dessert, afternoon coffee, or something sweet to take home after dinner. Continental baked goods, especially filled pastries iced with a seamless crust of shiny chocolate, are the specialties, but everything is top quality and top taste.

The bright store is done up in Crayola primary colors, and if you hunker down at one of the handful of tables, you can watch a mixed procession of regulars who know exactly what they want and visitors who can't make up their minds approach the glass display cases filled with fine pastries. At Halloween, when Old South Gaylord is closed to traffic so that local youngsters can safely trick-or-treat at local stores, the budding epicures head straight for Gerald's place.

Culinary Colorado—The Ultimate Food Lover's Guide
by Claire Walter

"Rare are the souls so virtuous that they can walk in the door of the Devil's Food Bakery and emerge without having sinned. The earthly temptations are profound and numerous. The lemon tart is a sun of buttery pastry cupping a puckery fresh lemon curd. The bittersweet chocolate filling in another tartlet was so dark and dense it makes fudge look fluffy. Other made from scratch items include cookies, dense brownie wedges, soft-crumb currant scones, baguettes and loft croissants..."

"Nibbles," by John Lehndorff, Restaurant Critic, Rocky Mountain News

"The rich, decadent chocolate cakes at Devil's Food Bakery are worthy of a Faberge egg exhibition but heaven comes at a price."

5280 Magazine

Sunset Magazine — Reinventing Old South Garylord — April 2003

Best Scones — Best of Denver 2000
Although baker/owner Gerald Shorey has been making a name for himself as a pastry chef for several restaurants around town, his true talents are on display at Devil's Food, his little bake shop on South Gaylord. In the wrong hands, the humble scone can be a hockey puck from hell; when Shorey's doing the baking, it's carbs from heaven. Shorey's scones are thick but light disks of flaky dough that melt in your mouth, bundles of goodness that make for a filling breakfast, a quick lunch or an ideal midday snack. Shorey varies the flavors—some days it's hazelnut or raisin, others it's blueberry or cranberry -- but always offers scone-buyers their choice of butter, homemade jam (the blueberry is divine) or his lemon curd, a custardy substance made from butter, sugar and eggs that's always found on the finest tables at high tea. Which is exactly where Shorey's scones belong. Let he who is without dietary guilt cast the first scone.