Cronut creator and pastry prodigy Dominique Ansel is packing his cookie cutters and baking trays into a holdall and boarding the next Eurostar out of Dodge (AKA London), it’s been revealed. The famed chef has two London joints, Belgravia’s The Dominique Ansel Bakery and his brand new Covent Garden bistro and bakery, Dominique Ansel Treehouse, and both are shutting up shop.
Dominique Ansel’s place in history is sealed, alongside statues of Nelson, Wellington, Churchill and Jedward future generations will see the great man forged in bronze as the person who brought us the cross-between a doughnut and a croissant. The cronut.
When The Dominique Ansel Bakery opened on Elizabeth Street in 2016 we flocked to fill our Instagram feeds with carefully filtered pics of Ansel’s creations, and the hype was high when Treehouse opened in Covent Garden earlier this year. And rightly so, the French-American chef was sure to do it again and the bistro received rave reviews. But that was before coronavirus.
Now the New York based chef says that it’s impossible to operate either site profitably and Dominique Ansel Bakery will close on 31st August, while Treehouse sadly won’t reopen at all.
Alongside statues of Nelson, Wellington, Churchill and Jedward, future generations will see Ansel forged in bronze as the man who brought us the cross-between a doughnut and a croissant…
In a message to fans, the bistro explained ‘Over the past few weeks and months, we’ve gone through a time of patience and uncertainty as we navigated the pandemic and its effects together as a team and as a community. So it’s with heavy hearts that we share that we will not be reopening here at Dominique Ansel Treehouse in Covent Garden’, before thanking guests.
There will be one last incarnation of the cronut before we wave bye to the bakery, The Last Cronut is a milk chocolate banana and peanut flavour “filled with milk chocolate banana ganache and silky whipped peanut butter ganache”
Along with The Last Cronut, the only other ray of hope is the Belgravia bakery’s online farewell message, urging punters to return before the shop closes at the end of the month but also closing with ‘And when the time it right, return back to fill your days with something sweet’.
Let’s hope he’s back soon…
