The inventor of the Cronut
Dominique Ansel
Dominique Ansel invented the Cronut in his SoHo bakery in 2013 and turned a pastry into a queue that has never ended: the pastry chef as inventor, with the trademark to prove it.
- Currently
- Dominique Ansel Bakery, New York
- City
- New York
Ansel trained at Fauchon in Paris and led the pastry of Daniel Boulud’s restaurant in New York before opening his bakery on Spring Street in 2011. The Cronut, a laminated croissant dough fried like a doughnut, filled with cream and rolled in sugar, appeared in May 2013, was trademarked within weeks and has been made in one flavour a month ever since, with a pre-order that opens two weeks ahead. The DKA, his kouign-amann, the cookie shot and the frozen s’more followed.
He was named the world’s best pastry chef in 2017, opened bakeries in Tokyo, London and Hong Kong (some since closed), and keeps the SoHo original as the mother ship, with a workshop in Flatiron.
Ansel is the American chapter of the story: the pastry chef as inventor and brand, with a queue as the proof.
The path
- 2011
Opens Dominique Ansel Bakery in SoHo
- 2013
Invents the Cronut
- 2017
World’s best pastry chef
- 2019
Dang Wen Li opens in Hong Kong
Signature desserts
Dominique Ansel
Where to taste the work
