The best doughnuts in London, from Crosstown to Dum Dum

1/10
Ailis Brennan7 June 2019

From glazed rings to raspberry jam, Londoners certainly have a hole lotta love for doughnuts.

This week marks National Doughnut Week (May 11-18), during which bakeries, schools and workplaces across the country are being encouraged to bake and sell doughnuts to raise money for the Children’s Trust.

More information on how you can participate can be found on the initiative’s website.

Show your support by tucking into the very best deep-fried, sugar-coated, icing-glazed treats available in the capital.

From custard-filled classics to crazy croissant-crossovers, and from sourdough sensations to savoury snacks, these are the doughnut doyennes you dough-nut want to miss out on in London.

St. John

Stefan Johnson

Clerkenwell restaurant St. John may be world-renowned for its offal-loving menu, but it has some sweeter tricks up its sleeve too. Once you’ve scoffed a portion of chef Fergus Henderson’s famous bone marrow on toast, seek out even more indulgence with one of St. John’s legendary doughnuts. Ferociously fluffy and generously sugar-coated, the sweet treats come stuffed with the likes of custard, butterscotch, raspberry jam and more. Doughnuts are available at all St. John locations (day dependent) and are stocked at a variety of other London cafes too.

EC1, E1, WC2, stjohnrestaurant.com

Crosstown

Crosstown raised London’s doughnut game considerably when it introduced a whole new type of dough into the nut, so to speak. The doughnuts here are made with yeast-raised sourdough, giving the base a malty, bread-like tang. They come topped and filled with all manner of inventive and homemade ingredients, with flavours ranging from pomegranate and orange blossom to sea salted caramel and banana cream – Crosstown even have a huge selection of vegan varieties. The company started life as a street food stall in Clerkenwell’s Leather Lane, but now has multiple locations all across the city.

Various locations, crosstowndoughnuts.com

Bread Ahead

Steven Joyce

Borough Market is filled with bountiful sights and smells to entice the tastebuds – but the rows of oozing doughnuts outside Bread Ahead might be the most seductive of the lot. Famed for bursting at the seams with fabulous fillings, you can tuck into regular flavours including chocolate, vanilla cream, raspberry jam and praline at their Borough, Soho and Pavilion Road sites. If you’re keen to find out the secrets of these sweet sensations, Bread Ahead also run doughnut-making workshops at their Borough Market and Wembley locations.

SE1, SW1, W1, breadahead.com

Hide

Ailis Brennan

Why have any old doughnut when you can have a Michelin-starred doughnut? Ollie Dabbous’s highly acclaimed Mayfair restaurant may not be the first place you’d look for such a sweet fix, but head to the more casual Ground dining room for a welcome surprise. There’s only one doughnut on the menu at Hide, but boy is it a good’un: perfectly sugar-encrusted, and filled with light-as-you-like custard, flavoured delicately with orange blossom. It’s so good that Dabbous even classes it as one of his favourite dishes on the menu.

85 Piccadilly, W1J 7NB, hide.co.uk

Dominique Ansel Bakery

Thomas Schauer

Some thought Dominique Ansel was taking the biscuit when he took the crunchy credentials of a doughnut and blended it with a French patisserie classic – but now the Cronut is a certifiable international sensation. At his London bakery, sweet fiends can pick up one of Ansel’s instafamous creations, which sees flakey, layered croissant pastry arranged in a ring, before being deep-fried, sugar-coated and filled just like a doughnut. The flavour of the Cronut on offer changes monthly, with recent examples having included rhubarb and custard, gooseberry and rose, and date and butterscotch. This month marks six years of Ansel’s cronut, which means fans can pick up a limited edition box of six favourite past flavours.

17-21 Elizabeth Street, SW1W 9RP​, dominiqueansellondon.com

Rinkoff Bakery

We don’t know about you, but we think there’s plenty of room in the capital for more than one croissant-doughnut hybrid. Family-owned Rinkoff Bakery has been cooking up cakes, rolls and challah breads for more than 100 years in the East End, and it now also turns out a sterling version of the croissant-like crossbreed – here, it’s known as a Crodough. Patrons can pick them in a wide variety of flavours, including salted caramel with pistachio, dulce de leche, cherry pie and peanut butter and jelly.

Two locations in E1, rinkoffbakery.co.uk

Dum Dum Donutterie

We hate to break it to you, but a doughnut is not the lowest-calorie snack in the world. Health-conscious folk can, however, have their cake and eat it at Dum Dum Donutterie, the London sweet-tooth pitstop that bakes its doughnuts rather than frying them. The versions from pastry chef Paul Hurley might lack the oily pleasure of a dunk in the deep fryer, but their stellar flavour makes up for such misgivings: tuck into the likes of lemon meringue, strawberry cheesecake and blueberry creme at the franchise’s multiple London outlets.

Various locations, dumdums.co.uk

Duck and Waffle

Doughnuts aren’t just for dessert – at sky-high restaurant Duck and Waffle, they make a perfectly good starter too. The restaurant already has one sweet-meets-savoury dish as its namesake, but another of the most enduringly loved dishes on the City spot’s 24-hour menu is a fellow meaty mash-up. This doughnut which comes filled with a silky bite of spiced ox cheek, dusted in paprika sugar and served with a dollop of apricot jam on the side.

110 Bishopsgate, EC2N 4AY, duckandwaffle.com

Bea’s of Bloomsbury

The doughnut’s crossbreeding capability hasn’t stopped with the croissant. At tea room and bakery Bea’s of Bloomsbury (which also now sports locations in St Paul’s and Marylebone) the doughnut comes crossed with a muffin – yes, it’s a duffin. Muffin dough is used for the base, which is then fried, sugar-coated and filled with either jam or Nutella. It sounds absurd – and it sort of is – but it’s also one of the most indulgently satisfying snacks in the capital. We’ll take four.

EC4, W1, WC1, beas.london

Bird

Paul Winch-Furness / Photographe

All-American, Deep South-inspired diner Bird is pretty handy with a deep fat fryer. Its speciality is fried chicken which comes in pretty much any form imaginable, from on top of waffles to inside burgers. Desserts come similarly well sizzled, with the doughnut taking centre stage for the sweet offerings. Diners can go for “Doughnut Holes” – miniature, cinnamon-sugared doughnuts with chocolate or toffee dipping sauce – or the daily changing glazed doughnut which comes flavoured with the likes of maple, caramel chocolate chip and Oreo with white chocolate. If you really want to go all out, Bird offers the option of turning the doughnut into an ice cream sandwich.

E2, N7, NW1, E20, birdrestaurants.com

100 delicious dishes in London that cost less than £10

1/100

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in