Dominique Ansel's New Bakery Opens Today With Guinness Brioche And Fancy Pain Au Chocolat

Cronut king Dominique Ansel opened up his second New York City bakery in the West Village today. Although this location will not sell the hybrid pastries that made him a New York sweets legend, who needs cronuts when you can sample the next generation of the French pastry staple pain au chocolat? Ansel's interpretation of the classic is a croissant with honeycomb crumb, topped with orange compound butter and shards of Valrhona dark chocolate and sprinkled with sea salt.

That's just one of the pastry creations you can get at Dominique Ansel Kitchen. The bakery will have what Ansel believes to be a unique business model: 70 percent of the menu items will be made to order, rather than assembled in bulk, according to Time Magazine.

"When you think of pastries, it's still a world that hasn't been explored as much," Ansel told Time Magazine. "In New York, there are bakeries from different countries, but there's nothing as exciting. There are no experimental bakeries, there are no bakeries that really push themselves to do something unique and different."

Some of the other menu highlights that have us salivating in anticipation are the 1:1 lemon yuzu butter tart (a made-to-order lemon tart where the lemon curd is emulsified with fine European butter just before being served from a milkshake maker); made-to-order chocolate mousse, and Guinness baba au rhum (Guinness-soaked brioche with malt cream).

The bakery will also sell savory items, including the EGG-clipse (squid ink brioche with creamy garlic mashed potatoes and two confit egg yolks, filled with mushroom béchamel) and a prosciutto and Boursin croissant (a twist on the classic ham and cheese croissant). The bakery is also supposed to feature dessert cocktails with Champagne, mezcal, and other liquors.