Local doughnut shops thrive with creativity
Independent doughnut shops are building buzz for fanciful creations
Doughnut-makers who are offering outrageous and fantastical-flavored rings have popped up all over the area.
A line out the door is something most people in the culinary business dream about. But it makes Matt Opaleski nervous. What if some of the customers are disappointed? What if they feel they’ve wasted their time and calories? What if the line disappeared?
It’s these fears that drive him to work harder at the one thing — the only thing — his business is based on: doughnuts.
The owner of Hugs & Donuts in the Heights is grateful there are still lines on the weekends for his fanciful creations that caused a sensation when the store opened a year ago on a lonely corner at North Shepherd and 19th, which now is a veritable dining nexus. But he’s not taking any chances.
“I want to make sure we’re putting out the best doughnut possible,” Opaleski, a trained pastry chef, said. “If not, nobody’s going to want to wait in line again.”
He’s hardly alone. In the past several years, boutique doughnut shops offering outrageous, fantastical-flavored rings have popped up throughout greater Houston, with more on the way. Though longtime favorites such as Shipley Do-Nuts are getting new competition from national giants including Dunkin’ Donuts and Krispy Kreme, which returned to Houston in November after a nine-year hiatus, it is independent doughnut makers who are making their mark across our icingenrobed, chocolate sprinkled, custardstuffed landscape.
Glazed the Doughnut Cafe, which opened near the Medical Center in 2014, is planning to unveil another outpost in First Colony Mall this fall, with shops in Katy and Humble coming soon. Pena’s Donut Heaven & Grill, open since 2010 in Pearland, is set to debut a Houston store in August. And 5-monthold Decked Out Donuts in Tomball is doing a thriving business with doughnut excesses such as the Pig in a Wig (bacon, candied jalapeño and strawberry jam) and Fat Elvis (bacon, peanut butter and bananas with a cream cheese glaze).
Gourmet doughnuts even take an international spin at Pondicheri Bake Lab + Shop at West Ave., where workers turn out gulab jamun doughnuts flavored with rose, cardamom and saffron. Rice Village restaurant Helen Greek Food and Wine, meanwhile, offers a dessert of doughnuts coated with toasted fennel and sugar.
The newest entry to the growing market, however, is Morningstar, a gourmet doughnut and coffee shop from David Buehrer and Ecky Prabanto, the caffeinated owners of Blacksmith and Greenway Coffee. Morningstar’s brioche-style wheels, made with unbleached, unadulterated flour, are larger and weightier than traditional raised yeast doughnuts. And atypical: flavors include matcha green tea with white chocolate ganache, pomegranate creamfilled and a fritter made with pineapple, salted lime and chile. Although only available at the North Main shop, the doughnuts have their holed-hearts set on expansion with plans to bring them to Blacksmith, Greenway and Inversion Coffee House in Montrose.
What’s happening in Houston is part of a national phenomenon. Popular independent doughnut makers on both coasts (Donut Plant in New York, Voodoo Doughnuts in Porland, Ore.) and in between (Doughnut Vault in Chicago) have helped stoke the country’s appetite for upscale varieties. These hot new shops are all about chef-driven flavors, inventive toppings, and topquality, fresh ingredients. And they are being popularized by a new breed of doughnut lovers whose tastes have grown past the generic plain glazed or chocolate-frosted ilk of the baby boomer generation.
“I see doughnuts made with quality ingredients becoming a permanent part of American life,” said Ellen Brown, author of “Donut Nation: A CrossCountry Guide to America’s Best Artisan Donut Shops” (Running Press). “Once the palate develops, it’s rare for it to regress again. While I don’t see Dunkin’ Donuts going away any more than I see the imminent demise of McDonalds, I see quality doughnuts as doing nothing but growing.”
One of the reasons doughnuts have become so exalted, Brown said, is because they have, like cheeses, breads and other gourmet foods, been stamped with — buzzword alert — “artisanal” status.
Those were certainly not the type of doughnuts Sam Phan trafficked in when he moved to Houston in 2000. A Cambodian immigrant whose family came to this country to escape the Khmer Rouge, Phan fell into the doughnut business like many other Cambodians throughout the American South. In 2004, he had enough money to buy his first shop, Yankee Doodle Donuts, in Magnolia. He has since bought and sold many doughnut shops, at least a dozen in Houston and Louisiana. They all sold typical stock — crave-worthy, yes; glamorous, not really.
Phan also sold a 19-year-old Buehrer his first shop, Tasty Donuts, in Kemah. Two and a half years later, Hurricane Rita flooded the place but not Buehrer’s fascination with doughnuts. Today, after making his name with gourmet coffee, Buehrer finally is returning to his first love with Morningstar.
Doug Le saw the “craft” doughnut craze coming years ago. After research in New York and Chicago, he decided to open Doughmaker Doughnuts, a Houston food truck that has been in operation for two years in March. “I didn’t want to do another burger truck or taco truck,” Le said. At Doughmaker, the two best-selling doughnuts are a maple-glazed version topped with brown-sugar-candied bacon, and one with honeybutter glaze topped with a fried chicken strip.
Le wasn’t the only one thinking chicken and fried dough. Houston restaurateur Lee Ellis had for years promised to bring a boutique doughnut experience to town, and in October he came through with Lee’s Fried Chicken & Donuts on Heights Boulevard. “I thought doughnuts were the perfect complement to chicken: doughnuts for breakfast, chicken for dinner and lunch,” he said. (Lee’s sells both day and night.)
“I don’t really follow trends, I just love doughnuts,” he said. “Doughnuts make people smile. Everybody loves eating doughnuts. They are pure goodness.”
Especially if they’re crazycool, over-the-top doughnuts. Like the kind Steve Desselle sells at Decked Out Donuts in Tomball. The store he operates with his wife, Patricia, offers treats such as the Uptown Monkey (grilled bananas and brown sugar with a cream cheese glaze), as well as a “do-ityourself ” bar where customers can create their own doughnuts by picking a base and then Wonka-fying it with glazes and 20 different toppings.
“People like something different and new and not the same old ordinary doughnuts, which is what we’ve had for the longest time,” Desselle said.
Even longtime purveyors such as Raymond and Debbie Pena of Pena’s Donut Heaven & Grill in Pearland recognize the power of doughnut reinvention and innovation. The shop garnered press in 2014 when it teamed with Pearland’s Killen’s Barbecue to create the Killache, a kolachelike brisket-stuffed sweet bread. The company’s doughnut playbook includes about 60 to 80 different flavors and styles, of which about 30 are available on any given day.
“All the specialty doughnuts are labor intensive. You have to love what you do,” said Raymond Pena, whose mother owned a doughnut franchise. “The doughnuts I ate growing up were good. But I think we’ve improved the doughnut.”
Pena’s many flavors, along with the restaurant side of the business, have done well enough that they’re ready to expand operations with Pena’s Donuts & Diner, 10555 Pearland Parkway.
For his part, Opaleski’s business is doing well, and he, too, is looking to add a second Hugs & Donuts location. Unlike the macaron, whose trendiness might be fading, doughnuts have staying power, he said.
“I think it’ll continue,” Opaleski said. “For the same reason cupcakes are still going strong — they should have died off years ago.”