Dominique Ansel, the culinary mastermind behind the infamous Cronut, is opening a West Village bakery even closer to Washington Square. While Dominique Ansel Kitchen, set to open on April 29th, will not be offering the beloved Cronut and cookie shot, pastry fans can expect a “made to order” approach that emphasizes a fresh tasting experience. We had the pleasure of learning about this exciting new venture from the master himself.

You’ve had such incredible success with your original bakery. What can long-time fans expect to be different with the Kitchen?

We’d like to think of the two as siblings. The Kitchen’s main motto is all about “time as an ingredient.” We’re creating a menu that’s more than 70% made, assembled, finished, or baked to order. So you’re looking at fresh-folded chocolate mousse that gets made when you order it. And tarts that don’t have to sit in a case for hours but get assembled right when you ask for them. It just allows us to all have a fresher experience for simple, classic pastry items.

We’ve heard that you will be offering creative varieties of toast, could you tell us more about that?  

We wanted to create a limited savory menu, and we’re quite excited to show more of what we can do. One of my favorites is a breakfast sandwich called the Eggclipse, which is a squid ink brioche toast with garlic mash potatoes and two confit egg yolks on top. The inside is filled with mushroom bechamel, and it is decadent, buttery and rich.

As difficult as it may be, if you were to suggest just one item for a Dominique Ansel patron to try, what would it be?        

Start off with the 1:1 Lemon Butter Tart, where we emulsify butter into lemon and pour this very creamy textured lemon curd into a paper thin tart shell to order. And then move on to the chocolate mousse, which is airy and very light – a completely different texture and experience than the regular chocolate mousse you’ve had.