Dominique Ansel Bakery and 189 Restaurant Opens: You Can Now Get Cronuts in LA

The Cronut master, Dominique Ansel, is proving he’s more than a hybrid dessert creator with his newest bakery and restaurant which opened this month in Los Angeles.

189 by Dominique Ansel is Ansel's first step into Los Angeles and as well as bringing his trademark pastry inventions, the new openeing is also showcasing the pastry chef’s savoury creations.

Cronuts in Los Angeles

Ansel is known for the Cronut and other off-the-wall dessert ideas but, as you can see from the pictures and first menu below, the opening of 189 is showing a different side to Ansel’s cooking.

Queues for the bakery have already started, as you can see from the cronut craze video below, but it's the savoury dishes that are catching our eye.

Octopus Corn Dogs, Clam Chowder and 7 Hour Slow-Roasted Lamb Shoulder are just a few of the food listed on the menu which is rooted in French techniques, the restaurant say these will be applied across a range of flavours from different cultures.

Food at 189 Restaurant

Left: milk bread filled with sweet corn purée, served on purple corn husk and topped with Cotija cheese, chili and lime. Right: french onion soup with braised purple cabbage, savory ham hock broth, homemade rye crouton, melted Gruyère and Fontina cheese.

It’s a big place, 150 seats, and will open for dinner every day with a special brunch service on Saturdays and Sundays only.

Left: fried chicken with warm butermilk biscuits. Right: roasted baby chicken with black garlic rice stuffing and chilled spicy scallion salad.

In the dessert department, Ansel is serving five different creations that are each inspired by his training as a chef. One, called Knife Skills, is a painstakingly prepared dish that sees apple served up in five different ways: ribbons, brunoise, apple meringue, caramelised apple and apple with ginger sorbet.

Another, Roast, is a nostalgic holiday kick of flavour with chestnut and activated charcoal.

Left: chestnut cake, caramel inside real chestnut shells, torched with coffee beans and cedar wood, with whiskey ice cream in activated charcoal. Right: almond sponge, three milks (milk, evaporated milk, and banana milk), spice bouquet, orange, and crème fraîche.

Left: Soft dark chocolate cake with salted peanut butter mousse, bergamot caramel, and crispy feuilletine. Right: milk granita with wildflower honey syrup, passion fruit gelée, fennel meringue, and fennel spritz.