Lachlan Oliver recalls how desserts would make him feel better after witnessing tragedies while serving as an Air Force medic in Afghanistan. On one particularly bad day when he lost a couple of friends to the battlefields, the notion of opening up a dessert shop suddenly struck. He began writing letters about the idea to his brother, Sean Davis, who was flying Black Hawk helicopters at the time for the Army in Iraq. The siblings eventually shed their fatigues and ended up bringing to central North Park the new dessert café called Heaven Sent.

“Opening the business has been really therapeutic for Sean and I. It’s nice to go from so much disarray and chaos into an environment where you see smiles,” says Oliver.

The 2,500-square-foot café, stocked with 10-inch gourmet cakes and a team consisting of eight pastry chefs, bakers and cake decorators, is a boon to the neighborhood’s revitalization plan, which so far has included the reopening of the Old North Park Theatre and extensive electrical revamping in the area.

“We looked at 16 different areas from San Diego to Santa Barbara,” Oliver notes. “North Park had the most diversity that we really enjoy.”

With little to no baking experience under their belts, the brothers hired pastry chef Tracy Heffernan, who worked for 12 years in Austin at various five-star hotels and has whipped up specialty cakes for actresses Sandra Bullock and Gwyneth Paltrow and First Lady Laura Bush. Augmenting the team is Tina Luu, a pastry consultant and instructor with 18 years in the business. The women’s international baking styles fit perfectly into Heaven Sent’s concept.

“My brother and I actually aren’t into American desserts because they’re so overwhelming with sugar,” Oliver says. “We were both exposed to desserts all over the world that we thought tasted so much better.

“But we do have our extremes,” he adds, referring to the shop’s deep-fried chocolate peanut butter truffles served with caramelized bananas and Cajeta ice cream.

The truffles are among an array of hot-plated desserts that are made to order, which also include Heaven Sent S’mores assembled with pan-fried brioche bread, homemade marshmallows and chocolate fondue. Another, called Paradise Pockets, involves two phyllo pockets stuffed with raspberry-pineapple compote and served with chocolate-rum dipping sauce. And then there’s the Eden Garden that mimics Caprese salad – an arrangement of strawberries and vanilla panna cotta dressed in balsamic syrup and basil strips.

The cake racks in particular are a sight for sore eyes in a city that has so few eat-in bakeries. Among the more decadent and unique offerings is a three-layer grapefruit-poppy seed cake garnished with citrus sections. The Torched Lemon-Raspberry Cake features fresh lemon curd and berries covered in torched meringue. And the big seller, says Oliver, is the Green Teaser, a chocolate-fudge cake layered with crème brulee infused with green tea, French-style buttercream and toasted black sesame seeds.

The café also makes wedding cakes, which have caught the attention of same-sex couples tying the knot. “Our last four orders have been for gay and lesbian weddings,” says Oliver. “We also cater to businesses asking for their company logos on the cakes.” Oliver says his staff prefers a 48-hour notice for custom cake orders, “although we have taken many requests on short notice.”

The café, which seats about 85 people, boasts an open, contemporary feel with colors that “come from the military,” adds Oliver. “We chose olive green, along with red, which reminds me of being a medic, and white that reminds Sean of flying.”

Heaven Sent is located at 3001 University Ave., at the corner of 30th Street. Hours are 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. on Saturdays; and 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, call (619) 793-4758.