Carpe Donut: Next Level Gourmet Snacks

The Carpe Donut truck was parked outside our offices the other day and we couldn't resist going down and seeing what it was about. We ordered an apple cider donut and as we had hoped, it was incredible! It was cakey (in the best sense), but not too dense or too sweet.

The award-winning donut was so good in fact, that we followed up with truck owner Andrew Bozzo to discuss donuts, their Grub Street Award, and the future of Carpe Donuts.

Carpe Donuts comes after an increasing trend in donuts, but Bozzo thinks it's more than that. "Donuts are a part of the bigger trend of gourmet versions of comfort food. It's taking something that has lowly status and reimagining it in a fancier, more thought out, less mass-produced way."

And these gourmet donuts are creating some buzz; with a New York Magazine naming their Apple Cider Donut one of the best in 2013 and a Vendy nomination for best dessert truck, it appears as though Bozzo and his team at Carpe Donuts have mastered the fried art, or are at least well on their way.

It would come as no surprise that Bozzo's favorite donut is the Apple Cider donut, too, which he tells us is a cake donut as opposed to a yeast donut. "Most cake donuts are very dense, but the donut we make is a bit lighter than the traditional cake donut."

Carpe Donuts is part of the preeminent impact that food trucks have made on the New York culinary scene, with owners like Bozzo seeing it as an opportunity to reach more customers.

"In a traditional shop, unless you have good presence on a city-wide level from a review or are in with the right group, you can't break out of that cycle. [With a truck, you] can bring yourself to the neighborhoods you want to be in and grow your audience that way. We bring our whole presence everywhere we go."

When we asked him about the future of Carpe Donuts, Bozzo responded with hesitant optimism. "We're still young and we're happy to have all of the great responses from our customers," he said. "Could I see a brick-and-mortar location? Yes definitely. More trucks? Yes definitely. We're still in the beginning stages, though, so we're going to focus on making sure everything is working as best as we can."