Sitting alone at an enormous table in the back of his restaurant, the recently-relocated Sevendipity Café at 3030 Creswell Avenue in Shreveport, chef/owner Scott Roebuck is describing his restaurant’s newest menu item. “It’s part croissant, part doughnut. It’s delicate, it’s flaky. It’s almost like a croissant that dissolves in your mouth; it’s cotton candy-ish.” Roebuck is describing the cronut, a labor-intensive pastry that was invented in New York City in 2013, and has since become one of the biggest food trends in recent years. TIME named it “One of the 25 Best Inventions of 2013.” High-end bakeries in the Dallas area sell 15,000 or more cronuts a day (see this dramatically titled article from Eater Dallas, “Cronut Impostors Spread Across the Metroplex”), with patrons standing in line for two hours or more. My research didn’t turn up any bakeries or restaurants anywhere in Louisiana serving cronuts.
That’s probably because serving cronuts is insane.
“From start to finish, they take 12 hours to make,” Roebuck said, as if that were not a completely outrageous amount of time to spend folding pastry. “They’re right up my alley: they’re technical, they’re hard. I’ve been working on this recipe for three months. I’ve probably made 100 or more batches in that time. That’s a lot of time for a damned donut.”
Why invest all of that time, then?
“This could put us on the map,” Roebuck said, taking a swig from a gigantic can of Red Bull. I am guessing that this is not his first can of Red Bull today. “If I could be the first person in Louisiana to do cronuts at their peak…”
His voice trails off and together, we imagine living in a Louisiana with cronuts.
According to Roebuck, Sevendipity Café will begin selling the popular pastries on the morning of Saturday, May 17. A price has not been decided upon (I’m writing this at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 16, by the way), and details regarding toppings/flavors, etc. are also in the works. Before we wrapped things up, I asked: If you put all of that work into crafting and folding the pastry layers, what do you do with the doughnut holes?
“I’ve been waiting for you to ask that,” he said, pausing for dramatic effect. “Cronut beignets!”
My wife and I were lucky enough, along with a few other patrons during tonight’s dinner service, to sample both the cronuts and the cronut beignets. They are spectacular. See you in line?
