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The Latest Doughnut Mashup? Vegan, Pancake-Inspired, Made By Dave Beran

By Janet Rausa Fuller | October 6, 2015 6:00am

The vegan blueberry pancake doughnut at Do-Rite Donuts, from Next chef Dave Beran, is on sale through Wednesday. [Do-Rite Donuts]

DOWNTOWN — What happens when the James Beard Award-winning chef of an innovative West Loop restaurant makes a doughnut?

He makes a vegan blueberry cornmeal pancake doughnut smeared with vegan maple buttercream, of course.

OK, maybe Next chef Dave Beran's creation for Do-Rite Donuts isn't so predictable. But it's personal: Beran keeps a mostly vegan diet and has an affinity for both raw cornmeal batter (really) and blueberry pancakes, his fuel food (he's an avid runner and cyclist).

The $2.50 doughnut is available through Wednesday at both Do-Rite locations, 50 W. Randolph St. and 233 E. Erie St.

Beran is friends with Do-Rite chefs Francis Brennan and Jeff Mahin. That's how this and the shop's previous limited-edition doughnuts have come about.

In August, Los Angeles chef and "Top Chef" winner Michael Voltaggio did a "Breakfast of Champions" doughnut that combined the flavors of French toast, maple syrup and bacon into one cereal-coated, vanilla-glazed number. Singer Noelle Scaggs did the first collaboration in July, a maple-glazed old-fashioned with candied Fresno chilies.

Beran said he talked through his pancake doughnut idea first with Brennan, who developed a few versions for him to sample until they whittled it down.

Beran has made two Do-Rite stops to stock up on his doughnut for friends and Next staff.

Mahin "also sent Next a dozen," he said.

Do-Rite spokeswoman Susan Jodry said Beran's doughnut has been "hard to keep on the shelf" due to demand, but she didn't say whether it has outperformed the others.

Nor would she say who the next doughnut collaborator is, only that he or she is a "chef and personality from Canada."

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