Time to Make the Doughnuts

Doughnuts are no longer just a morning food. Doughnut Lounge – a new doughnut shop with a cocktail and espresso bar – opened Thursday in Westport.

Beyond offering doughnuts late into the night, the lounge has a unique take on the fried rounds. Doughnut Lounge will launch with three tiers of doughnuts: classic, signature and noduts. The noduts are likely the most eye-catching, a collection of sweet and savory creations like the Chicken Fried (a glazed doughnut topped with fried chicken and hot sauce) that are meant to be eaten with a fork and knife.

Earlier this week, we talked to owner Jake Randall behind the bar, where they’re serving coffee from Michigan’s MadCap Coffee (Randall worked with one of the founders at a coffee shop in Illinois) and Lee’s Summit’s Post Coffee Co., as well as featuring Alchemy’s cold brew on tap. They’ll also be slinging cocktails ranging from an Old Fashioned to Slow Jamz (vodka, espresso and cream) to Daily Breakfast (a daily special of a shot and a beer) in a menu designed by Julep’s Dom Petrucci.

Randall has spent the past eight months building out the former clothing store at 4117 Westport Road. In October, the doughnut shop raised $27,009 on Kickstarter to help fund the last phase of construction.

“Doughnut Lounge is about creativity,” Randall said. “We want to start conversations.”

And those conversations will unquestionably begin with the unusual doughnuts offered by the Doughnut Lounge. They’ll be serving up yeast, old-fashioned, and cake rounds six days a week starting at 6:30 a.m., and through 10 p.m. Sunday-Tuesday and 1 a.m. Thursday-Saturday. The classics go beyond glazed with a lemon pistachio old-fashioned and tres leches doughnut. The signature doughnuts get a little wilder with the Dolly (a doughnut with sheep’s milk custard, a root beer glaze and fresh basil) and S’mores (a square doughnut with marshmallow fluff, graham cracker crumble and a chocolate ganache glaze).

The noduts are designed to be meals, whether it’s the Glazed & Gravy (a take on biscuits and gravy featuring a glazed doughnut, sage and sausage gravy, and a fried egg) to the Vegetarian (a sweet corn cake doughnut with roasted mushrooms, Green Dirt Farm sheep’s milk cheese, and arugula).

Since the doughnuts are the story, we wanted to show you how Doughnut Lounge approaches their unique creations. So we tagged along as kitchen manager Tye Eckert made the eatery’s vegetarian doughnut. Enjoy the video. Keep a doughnut handy.

— Jonathan Bender writes about food trends for KCPT’s Flatland, and is the founder of the Recommended Daily.