Doughnut Plant - Chelsea

Made fresh daily on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Doughnut Plant's doughnuts are always tempting and always delicious. Owner and baker, Mark Isreal, has added a gourmet touch to his grandfather's 1934 doughnut recipe, using the highest quality all-natural ingredients. Doughnuts are made without eggs, trans fats, preservatives or artificial flavors. Oven baked cake doughnuts, deep fried (using vegetable oil) yeast doughnuts, and homemade fillings and glazes are made from scratch using fresh local seasonal fruits and roasted nuts.

In 1999, after a visit to Mexico, the Doughnut Plant introduced the traditional cinnamon Mexican Churros to it's menu. The Plant is always evolving, offering daily doughnut specials as well as a variety of seasonal doughnut flavors. A full espresso and coffee bar brews Red Cat coffee and serves rich French Valrhona hot chocolate, along with Ronny Brook Dairy milk, a variety of upscale organic leaf teas, and chilled fresh coconut and ginger juices.

While their doughnut menu is vast, we will only mention a few: Tres Leches, PB & Jelly, Salted Peanut Cake, Chocolate Chip Cookie, Banana Cream and Coconut cream filled. A favorite of ours is the petite French Crème Brûlée (not too big and not too small), filled with a creamy vanilla custard and a contrasting caramel glaze. Another favorite is the giant sticky Cinnamon Bun, with it's succulent raisin swirls — although large enough to share, we don't recommend it.

Mark Isreal's family doughnut recipe has evolved since the days when his grandfather began making doughnuts in his Burlington, North Carolina bakery back in 1934. The Doughnut Plant has transformed the doughnut into a gourmet treat with flavors that cannot be found in any other doughnut shop today.

In 1994, Mark Isreal began making donuts in the basement of a Lower East Side tenement building, personally delivering his doughnuts by bicycle to Balducci's, Dean & Deluca and local New York City coffee shops. With the help of his family in 2000, he opened his own retail bakery on the Lower East Side, the very first Doughnut Plant. Since then, he has opened Doughnut Plants in Chelsea, NYC and nine other locations in Japan.