An off-shoot of Dominique Ansel Bakery, Dominique Ansel Kitchen is a fusion of a “retail bakery with a restaurant service kitchen”. They have a lot more interesting pastries and desserts (they are honestly much fancier) and tend to have a lot of last-minute specials that create a more exciting experience.
A few of the items on the menu that I’ve tried:
- Mini Matcha Beignets: Made-to-order for peak freshness, these are incredibly light and perfect!
- Egg-clipse with Squid Ink Brioche: It has creamy mashed potatoes with an egg in the center on top of a squid ink brioche toast. It is quite heavy in comparison to the other dishes they have but I thought it was delicious.
- Edamame Avocado Toast: Their take on the classic avocado toast, it comes with radishes and edamame.
- Eggplant Tartine: Served with fresh cherry tomatoes and a balsamic vinaigrette, it is pretty standard brunch fare.
- Blueberry Laminated Brioche: I have no idea what kind of magic they put into this particular pastry but it was really addicting! I love the crispiness of the lamination and the brioche was so soft!
- Yuzu Butter Tart: This butter tart was so silky and smooth and the yuzu added a light citrus sweetness to it. Honestly, this was one of the best tarts I’ve had in NYC.
- Fraises des Bois Pavlova: I am not usually a pavlova fan because I don’t particularly have a good experience with meringues but this taught me that I just have had really bad meringues! Served with woodland strawberries and vanilla mascarpone cream, this was a special that they only served in the mornings during the week one spring and I’m glad I was able to wake up early enough to try this!
- Scotch Egg Roulette: Dominique Ansel Kitchen collaborated with Chef Dan Barber (of Blue Hill fame) and came up with this Scotch egg roulette challenge. A few of the chickens at Blue Hill Farm were fed a diet that included red pepper into the feed so some of the yolks would be bright red! How the roulette worked was that you had to cut open the Scotch egg in front of the server and if the yolk was red, you would win a prize! I won and received a gift card and fresh, crusty sourdough bread straight from Blue Hill Farm.
- Pot de crème: Served with chocolate mousse and a blackberry compote
In addition, they sell ice cream over the summer and recently they’ve been introducing a new flavor each month throughout the summer.
Their staple flavor is Burrata (burrata is half-formed mozzarella that is creamy and on the sweeter side). You can order it on its own – where it comes with microbasil, strawberry confit, and balsamic caramel – or you can order it as a swirl with their special flavor.
Some of their past flavors include:
- Salt and Pepper with a crispy gaufrette
- Cold Brew with milk foam and an anise biscotti
- Peach Tea with honey-roasted peaches and lemon powder
- DKA Ice Cream Sandwich: Kouign Amann with Cold Brew soft serve
- What-a-melon served inside a watermelon with chocolate seeds
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