Dominique Ansel Bakery Las Vegas
The James Beard award-winning pastry chef now serves Las Vegas after leaving LA
It would be a profound understatement to call James Beard- and World’s 50 Best-award winning Dominique Ansel an influential baker. Eleven years ago, his invention and introduction of the croissant-donut hybrid Cronut sparked a bona fide media storm in NYC, leading to lines hundreds of people deep just to try the sensational pastry. Countless clones (doughsants, crullants, etc) have since appeared, but the original – shown here in a changing monthly variant with brown sugar ganache and peach piping – is on its own level in ethereal texture, thanks to a three-day long prep process that other bakers hesitate to match.
By contrast, mini cakes immediately catch the eye – including an appealingly unkempt key lime pie, dainty blueberry “muffin,” and mimetic chocolate-dipped strawberry – but tend to land a little off ideal flavor marks due to unexpected ingredient compromises. Who wants a chocolate-dipped strawberry minus actual chocolate?
Ansel’s space in Las Vegas opened inside Caesar’s Palace two years ago, and is the closest to Orange County since COVID caused LA’s location at The Grove to close permanently. An ode to Vegas spectacle, a robot dispenses chocolate chip Cookie Shots filled with vanilla milk, enabling some customers to skip the lines for other treats, including DAK kouign ammans, macarons, croque monsieurs, and other savory baked goods. A new and expanded location called Dominique Ansel Marche is planned for Paris Las Vegas later this year, and could give that hotel its best shot at drawing crowds since the turn of the century.
Must-Trys
Monthly Cronuts
Maybe Skip
Chocolate Covered Strawberry
Stats
Price: $$
Service: Counter
Open Since: 2022
Addresses
3570 Las Vegas Blvd S.
Las Vegas, NV 89109
702.731.7865
Instagram: @dominiqueansellasvegas