Dominique Ansel Kitchen

There are no Cronuts at Dominique Ansel’s West Village restaurant, but 70 percent of the menu items are made-to-order, which means that his cooks will cut whole vanilla beans and sprinkle them over ice cream, slice ham à la minute and wrap it around a cheese croissant, and emulsify lemon curd in a milkshake maker before adding it to a tart. Even hazelnut madeleines are baked to order (they take just four minutes). Ansel wants to subvert the expectations of a typical bakery and make this concept more like a restaurant’s kitchen. He’s serving both savory and sweet dishes, which also include matcha beignets, sage-smoked brownies, and something called the “Egg-clipse” — squid-ink brioche with garlic mashed potatoes, two confit egg yolks, and mushroom béchamel. There’s also an after-hours tasting menu (desserts only) on the second floor of his production kitchen, called U.P. (which stands for “unlimited possibilities”). And, in warmer months, an ice-cream stand that has doled out burrata ice cream or watermelon sorbet served inside a wedge of fresh watermelon itself. You can’t go wrong, any way you slice it. Whatever you order, you get served the same thing: a surprise.