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The gourmet doughnut revolution: Has it jumped the shark?

Creative, flavorful doughnuts were once delightful and refreshing, but Sriracha and peanut butter? Savory doughnut sandwiches? We've gone off the deep end.

Bloomberg News

May 10, 2017 at 7:25PM

The doughnut is nearly a perfect thing: chewy but with a hint of crisp; sweet but light; designed to be dipped, topped, dusted and sprinkled. Why must we take it to grotesque extremes? (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Doughnuts, you have gone too far.

Not long ago, we were your biggest champions. We cheered when you evolved into the scrumptious, flaky cronut, and when you multiplied up and down the West Coast through the Blue Star chain, which brought slick, beautiful rings from Portland, Ore., to Los Angeles. We welcomed such top-tier bakeries as Dough in New York, Union Square Donuts in Boston, District Doughnuts in Washington, Curiosity Doughnuts in New Jersey and Federal Donuts in Philadelphia. They were making versions of you that were airy yet rich, gorgeously glazed and garnished.

We were thrilled this year when you appeared in superb cakey style at Wylie Dufresne's Du Donuts and Coffee, in Brooklyn, with flavors such as Creamsicle, Mexican Hot Chocolate and even the shouldn't-work-but-it-does "Peanut Butter and Yuzu." We were ecstatic to see you take cruller form, coated in maple and cinnamon sugar, at Danny Meyer's Daily Provisions cafe.

But now you've overreached.

You tarted yourself up at Glam Doll Donuts in Minneapolis, stepping out in a garish combination of peanut butter and Sriracha.

You debuted at Datz Dough in Tampa, Fla., in the form of a $10 doughnut ice cream cone. The Nutella-lined "cone" is made of doughnuts filled with jelly-doughnut-flavored soft serve, topped with bacon caramel popcorn, whipped cream, and a cherry.

No-no, doughnuts. Bad doughnuts.

We knew you'd jumped the shark when we saw that JPMorgan Chase Bank made its own doughnut. Mark Isreal of the Doughnut Plant, a perfectly respectable purveyor of fried dough, lost his mind and created the Ripple, three concentric doughnut rings the size of a large pizza. The visual effect, and flavors such as Thanksgiving (cranberry, sweet potato, and candied ginger), ensured it was a huge hit on social media. And then the whole thing was revealed to be a Chase small-business promotion. We tried to eat one and it was a terrible user experience.

Once you became commercialized, it was all over. Anyone thought they could put something in a ring shape and call it a doughnut. The spaghetti doughnut is the latest smash hit at Smorgasburg in Brooklyn. (It's always Brooklyn, isn't it, doughnuts?) Not a dessert-like snack, it's actually an entrée-flavored like cheesy, bacon-flecked bolognese-forced into doughnut clothing. People are lining up for it each weekend in New York, even though perfectly delicious spaghetti bolognese is available in literally every neighborhood of the five boroughs.

For a while, the savory doughnut sandwich was a gimmick you'd find at the State Fair alongside the fried butter and funnel cake. No longer. First we read that there were Monte Cristo doughnut sandwiches at District Donuts in New Orleans. We could be persuaded.

But then we heard about what's going on at Gourdough in Austin, Texas. Their Dirty Bird sandwich-grilled chicken breast with pesto, mozzarella, and grilled peppers on a doughnut-is one of the shop's more conservative options. It offers six varieties of Donut Burgers. And an entire section of Donut Entrees that includes the Boss Hog (pulled pork, potato salad, and BBQ sauce on a doughnut, depicted above). The culmination is the Drunken Hunk, which is a doughnut topped with a mound of bacon-wrapped meatloaf, potato pancake and candied jalapeños.

We would do anything for love, doughnuts. But we won't do that.

We don't know anyone at Gourdough. But we do know Ford Fry, the Atlanta-based restaurateur who recently introduced a doughnut brunch to his Beetlecat restaurant. We can make peace with his straightforward doughnuts, including the one topped with Captain Crunch-and even the Buford Highway, which pays tribute to Atlanta's Asian restaurant neighborhood with a doughnut garnished with pork "floss" (essentially, barbecued pork that's cooked way down to strand-like texture).

But like all these sugar-high chefs, even Ford goes too far. We know it's a new rule that you're not allowed to gripe about any kind of fried chicken sandwich, even one that has an egg and the "bread" is actually two whole doughnuts. (Not even sliced!) But please tell us you understand why the doughnut Benedict, which includes poached eggs, shaved ham, and red pepper hollandaise, should be outlawed.

Fry laughed when asked why in the world he had to go overboard with a doughnut Benedict sandwich. "In our Inman Park neighborhood, there were already a bunch of places doing straightforward brunch. We wanted to do something different," he said. "We're getting a good response on the doughnut Benedict."

We're all going to crash from this sugar high. (And clogged arteries.)

Which will be terrible, because on its own, the doughnut is nearly a perfect thing. It's chewy with a hint of crisp on the exterior. It's sweet but light enough not to be cloying. It is designed to be dipped, topped, dusted and sprinkled. The innovation is built in! Why do we need to take it to grotesque extremes?

At this point, we are just baiting Pizza Hut into making a doughnut-crust pizza. Taco Bell is almost assuredly already working on a doughnut chalupa. Do we really want that?

When this happens, and it inevitably will, don't come crying to us.