Dominique Ansel | |
|---|---|
 Ansel in 2017 | |
| Born | 1978 (age 45–46) |
| Culinary career | |
| Cooking style | French pastry |
Current restaurant(s)
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Award(s) won
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| Website | dominiqueansel |
Dominique Ansel (born 1978) [1] is a French pastry chef and owner of Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York City. He is best known for his invention of the Cronut, a croissant-donut hybrid.
Raised in a working-class family in Beauvais, a small city an hour north of Paris, Ansel is the youngest of four children. [2] To help support the family, he dropped out of school at 16 and worked at a restaurant. [3] He also trained for three years at the free local culinary school, apprenticing as a cook in various local restaurants – first working in savory and then in pastry, gravitating most strongly to the scientific precision of pastry. [4]
At age 19, Ansel did his mandatory year of military service in French Guiana, cooking as part of a community program teaching locals how to cook. [4] When he returned home, he bought a car with his savings and began driving to Paris and dropping off his résumé at bakeries, and quickly got job offers. [4]
In Paris, Ansel worked a year at Pâtisserie Peltier and nearly eight years at Fauchon. [4] In 2006, he moved to the U.S. [4] and served for six years as executive pastry chef at Daniel Boulud's Daniel, [3] a two Michelin star French restaurant in New York City. [5] In 2011, he opened Dominique Ansel Bakery in SoHo, Manhattan. [2]
His invention of the Cronut in 2013 became a widely publicized phenomenon, being named one of Time Magazine's best inventions of the year. [6] [7] In 2014, he unveiled another dessert creation, the Chocolate Chip Cookie Milk Shot, which is a warm chocolate chip cookie molded in the shape of a shot glass and filled with milk. [8] [9]
He was named Best Pastry Chef in the U.S. by the James Beard Awards in 2014.
The World's 50 Best Restaurants awards named Ansel the World's Best Pastry Chef in 2017, at the age of 39. This made him the first pastry chef in America to be bestowed the honor. Other chefs to have won the award include Jordi Roca, Albert Adria, and Pierre Hermé. [10]
In November 2017, he opened Dominique Ansel Bakery Los Angeles, at The Grove. [11] The bakery and restaurant closed permanently in September 2020, following the forced restaurant closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. [12]
In January 2021, he opened his first shop in Hong Kong, Dang Wen Li by Dominique Ansel. [13]
He opened Dominique Ansel Workshop, a croissant counter inside of his pastry kitchen, in Manhattan's Flatiron District in July 2021. [13]
On October 21, 2022, he opened Dominique Ansel Las Vegas at Caesars Palace. [14]
Kouign-amann is a sweet, round Breton laminated dough pastry, originally made with bread dough, containing layers of butter and incorporated sugar, similar in fashion to puff pastry albeit with fewer layers. It is slowly baked until the sugar caramelizes and the butter expands the dough, resulting in its layered structure. A smaller version, kouignette, is similar to a muffin-shaped, caramelized croissant.
A hamantash is an Ashkenazi Jewish triangular filled-pocket pastry associated with the Jewish holiday of Purim. The name refers to Haman, the villain in the Purim story. In Hebrew, hamantashen are also known as אוזני המן, meaning "Haman's ears". "Haman's ears" also refers to a Sephardic Purim pastry, "Orejas de Haman", thought to originate in Spain and Italy, that is made by frying twisted or rolled strips of dough.
David Chang is an American celebrity chef, restauranteur, author, podcaster, and television personality. He is the founder of the Momofuku restaurant group. In 2009, Momofuku Ko was awarded two Michelin stars, which the restaurant has retained each year since until its closure in 2023. In 2011, he co-founded the influential food magazine Lucky Peach, which lasted for 25 quarterly volumes into 2017. In 2018, Chang created, produced, and starred in a Netflix original series called Ugly Delicious, and through his Majordomo Media group, he has produced and/or starred in more television and podcasts. On November 29, 2020, he became the first celebrity to win the $1,000,000 top prize for his charity, Southern Smoke Foundation, and the fourteenth overall million dollar winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
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The Cronut is a pastry created and trademarked in 2013 by the French pastry chef Dominique Ansel. It resembles a doughnut and is made from croissant-like dough filled with flavored cream and fried in grapeseed oil.
Christina Tosi is an American chef and cookbook author. She is founder and co-owner with Momofuku of Milk Bar and serves as its chef and chief executive officer. Food & Wine magazine included her in their 2014 list of "Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink".
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A cruffin is a hybrid of a croissant and a muffin. The pastry is made by proofing and baking laminated dough in a muffin mould. The cruffin is then filled with a variety of creams, jams, crème pâtissières or curds, and then garnished.
Joanne Chang is an American chef and restaurant owner. She is the owner of Flour Bakery in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts and James Beard Foundation Award winner for Outstanding Baker, 2016. In announcing the award, Devra First of the Boston Globe wrote that Chang was "on her way to becoming the Susan Lucci of the Beards." She is known for her sticky buns. In 2021, Chang appeared as a judge on Netflix's Baking Impossible.
Bouchon Bakery is a 2012 cookbook written by American chef Thomas Keller and Sebastien Rouxel. The cookbook's pastry recipes are based on those from Keller's restaurant Bouchon Bakery, where co-author Rouxel works as a pastry chef. Bouchon Bakery contains close to 150 recipes, as well as cooking tips and techniques. Keller tested many of the recipes with gluten-free flour. Bouchon Bakery emphasizes "clean cooking". Recipes contained in Bouchon Bakery include shortcrust pastry, laminated dough, croissants, choux pastry, brioche and levain bread, as well as a recipe for baked dog food.
The City Bakery was a bakery, cafe, chocolate shop, caterer and wholesaler. Its first location opened in Lower Manhattan of New York City in 1990. There were eight City Bakery locations in Japan: Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka. City Bakery Detroit was its last expansion. City Bakery also owned and operated six eco-minded bakeries called Birdbath Neighborhood Green Bakery in New York. The City Bakery closed on October 20, 2019 due to debt-related financial difficulties.
Nuvrei is a bakery in Portland, Oregon.
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Oyatsupan Bakers, or simply Oyatsupan, is a Japanese bakery in the U.S. state of Oregon. The original bakery opened in Beaverton in 2016, and second location opened in Tigard in 2019.
Little T American Baker is a bakery in Portland, Oregon.
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The croffle is a hybrid of a croissant and waffle. It was popularized in South Korea and then spread throughout the world. The concept is reminiscent of another pastry, the Cronut, which is a croissant and donut hybrid created by Dominique Ansel.
Hello Robin is a woman-owned bakery with two locations in Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington. The original bakery opened on Capitol Hill in 2013. A second location opened at University Village in 2020.
Temple Pastries is a bakery in Seattle's Central District, in the U.S. state of Washington. Christina Wood started the business as a pop-up in 2018, and relocated to a brick-and-mortar restaurant in partnership with Broadcast Coffee Roasters in 2020.
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