3 days ago
Don't Ask For A Cronut At Dominique Ansel's New Pastry Shop
Dominque Ansel at his new bakery, Papa d'Amour in Greenwich Village, where you can't buy a cronut ... More but have plenty of other options.
Don't even think about ordering a cronut at pastry chef's Dominique Ansel's new bakery Papa d'Amour located in the heart of Greenwich Village on University Place. It opened on May 22, 2025, after Ansel made quite the name for himself at his eponymous bakery on Spring Street in SoHo that debuted in 2013. There he launched his cronut that merged the croissant with the donut and became quite a media sensation.
But at the new bakery, no cronuts for sale. At Papa d'Amour, Ansel is going off in a new direction, and therefore decided he wanted no vestiges of his past creations to intrude. He describes this new concept as 'a fusion between French pastries and Asian bread culture.'
Time magazine, for example, called cronuts one of the 25 best inventions of 2013. But he made only 250 of them a day, causing people to line up on the street an hour before it opened, and then selling out.
Ansel explains that making only 250 cronuts daily wasn't a marketing ploy, but that his kitchen in the back was tiny and that was all he could produce.
Besides his new bakery and the original one, he also oversees the Dominique Ansel Workshop on East 27th Street specializing in French-style bread called viennoisserie and a production facility for the two other bakeries, so it's now 3 bakeries he operates.
Hence, he's developed a host of new pastries and sandwiches, combining his classical French training with some Taiwanese flavors, influenced by his wife, who is from Taiwan.
In the back, there are a dozen chefs baking. Why so many? Ansel replies that he needs that many chefs for the 'quality and diversity and we need trained chefs to do it. Everything is made by hand.'
A New Direction for Ansel
It's also an homage to New York City where people of so many diverse cultures co-exist. At home he and his wife and their two children speak French, Chinese and English, and his new bakery connects with all 3 cultures.
'Everything on the menu,' Ansel explains, 'is brand new--no repeats from two other shops.' One of his favorites is its mochi donut, made with a special taro butter that fries up into a super light, lacy shell.
No Financial Assistant Required
Because Ansel's SoHo location has done so well, he was able to self-capitalize his new bakery, without any financial partners or investors. 'I believe in ownership and keeping things small. It allows us to focus our creativity and the things that matter most,' he asserts.
Even Ansel Had His Setbacks
But even well-praised Ansel has had his ups and downs. While his Spring Street bakery still thrives, his Seventh Avenue/Charles Street bakery and upstairs workshop in the heart of the West Village closed in July 2020, a victim of Covid.
At his new bakery, he's also selling 4 sandwiches including crispy shrimp sandwich made with aoli, egg and tomato (its most popular), and a pork sandwich with cabbage and dressing.
The new shop has 20 seats and is open Monday to Sunday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. And it hasn't taken long for it to catch on. When this reporter stopped by unannounced on a Sunday about noon, he encountered a line of about 30 people. A bakery staffer was handing out free cups of espressos to lighten the pain of waiting on line.
Why open on University Place? Ansel calls it a quintessential Greenwich Village neighborhood and noted that 'neighbors, residents, other business owners have come by to say hello and welcome us.' It's also located not far from New York University, the New School, Cardozo Law School so it attracts plenty of students.
Go Early or Leave Disappointed
Asked if people are ordering the sandwiches at dinner time, Ansel admits that most days, despite the dozen bakers, they've been selling out of most things by 3 p.m. 'We're having a hard time keeping up, but we want to focus on quality,' not speed, he says. He expects to start building up production so sandwiches will be available later.
Asked if there is a fourth bakery in the works, Ansel laughs, and then says, he's gotten requests from private equity people to expand the number of his bakeries, but so far has resisted. 'It's not about the numbers; it's about the product and controlling what you make,' he asserts.
Ansel calls the keys to his new bakery's success as: 1) Creativity of product, 2) Maintaining the quality, 3) Being close to guests and staff, 4) Be attentive to listening.
One last thing, Ansel advises that the next time this reporter stops by Papa d'Amour, he try the egg tart and mochi donut, which he says, is flavorful and chewy. ' You'll be heavier on happiness,' he says, if not the scale.
