Hubs and I lined up at the Dominique Ansel Bakery at 6:30am for an 8am bakery opening. This is the bakery that invented the cronut and currently offers a limited number of pastries for sale every day. Each month, there is a different flavour. In June, the flavour was strawberry balsamic and mascarpone with basil sugar.
Overall, the cronut was a little bit harder and more dense than I thought it would be but the flavours were really nice. While I'm happy we got to try it, I don't think I would line up for it again. My hubby, on the other hand, LOVED it and he said he would line up again... surprising because he's not a morning person. That being said, I would return to the bakery to try some of the numerous other pastries. I would certainly order the perfect little egg sandwich again (steamed, fluffy, farm fresh eggs, with herbs and Gruyère cheese, served warm in a mini brioche bun) - this was amazing! The DKA (Dominique’s Kouign Amann) was also good - it had the texture that I thought the cronut would have - beautifully caramelized on the inside and light on the inside.
In case you ever want to try the bakery, you only have to line up early for the cronut. The line does get quite long but if you arrive around an hour before the bakery opens on a weekday, you have a good chance of getting a cronut. You can also pre-order online but I had no luck getting onto the website when the window opened. If you don't care to try the cronut, you can go to the bakery any time of the day and just walk in. There is a second and much shorter line where you can order everything except for the cronut. When we were in line, the bakery let us try some housemade lemonade and some mini madeleines.
Once our bellies were full, we walked from Soho to Wall Street to the Brooklyn Bridge. We had an amazing third day in NYC!
