Pastry Genius Dominique Ansel to Open New Bakery April 29

Today Cronut king Dominique Ansel announces that Dominique Ansel Kitchen, his new West Village bakery/pastry tasting counter will open its doors on April 29, and when it does it will have a young new executive pastry chef in charge. Karys Logue, a 26-year-old chef with an impressive resume, will oversee the team of over 40 people at Dominique Ansel Kitchen and the original Dominique Ansel Bakery, and work alongside Ansel in creating the menus at both.

Logue first worked for Ansel seven years ago, when he was a pastry chef at Daniel. After stints in Australia, and at Cafe Boulud and Tessa, she signed back on with Ansel just under a year ago. But, she tells Eater, "We've been crafting the kitchen concept for longer than that. It's always been the dream to take a bakery and turn it on its end a little bit," which is what Ansel hopes to do with Dominique Ansel Kitchen, where all the pastries will be made or finished to order.

With the opening of the new bakery less than a month away, the menu is mostly set, though Logue promises that menu development will continue up until the last minute. So far, Ansel has revealed that there will be classics like mille feuille and chocolate mousse, plus a very buttery lemon tart (which Logue says is made by blending fresh, soft butter into lemon curd with a milkshake machine) and some crazy-looking toasts. Logue adds that another favorite is the garlic bread croissant, which incorporates garlic and rosemary into the butter used to actually make the croissant dough. But a lot of the menu is still a mystery, and will remain that way until the bakery opens its doors. "There are so many surprises coming up for the first guests who walk through the door," says Logue. Since this is Dominique Ansel we're talking about, and since a mashed-potato-topped, bechamel-filled squid ink toast is already on the menu, what those surprises will be is anyone's guess.

Logue will also play a major role at Unlimited Possibilities, the new bakery's upstairs tasting counter. She says it will open a few weeks after Dominique Ansel Kitchen does, and offer a menu of about eight courses to a table of just eight seats. "We wish we could share [this] with more people," Logue says, but the nature of the menu means that the chefs can't serve a high volume of people. Plus the table is in the kitchen, which limits how much space they have to work with. Price hasn't been set, but it will be "fairly priced," so that people can go for the tasting menu after a dinner out without totally blowing their budget. Again, most of what the menu involves is being kept a "surprise," but Logue does tease that "we're working with some interesting people" on it. Does that mean guest chefs? Collaborations? Only time will tell.