Dominique Ansel Teams Up With Wylie Dufresne for the Ultimate Breakfast Mash-Up

Pastry virtuoso Dominique Ansel is at it again. This time the chef teamed up with molecular gastronomy master Wylie Dufresne to create the most technical breakfast sandwich you’ll probably ever taste: A wd~Ansel Egg Melt, available for just a few days, starting tomorrow at Dominique Ansel Kitchen (137 Seventh Avenue South, 212-242-5111).

The sandwich incorporates soft scrambled eggs with a confit egg yolk, homemade cheese “à la Wylie,” black truffles, bacon, and maple flakes on a smoked English muffin (à la Dominique), with extra-crisp truffled hash browns on the side.

It’s not a surprise the two chefs have teamed up for a project — each is known for taking everyday dishes and spinning them into new forms and flavors. Ansel tells the Voice via email, “I have always been a fan of Wylie’s, and I really respect his creativity. We’ve never collaborated together, so we were excited to come up with something fun that we could do together, and we ultimately decided on the idea of doing a really delicious breakfast.”

The chefs chose to elevate the breakfast sandwich, an everyday bodega grab for busy commuters, into something memorable. “Breakfast is the most important meal in a bakery, and I always spend a lot of time thinking about new ways we can serve up breakfast items, from the DKA to croissants to the Cronut,” says Ansel. “There’s really so much that you can do with just eggs, flour, butter, and sugar. We each did what we do best. I baked the English muffins — we smoke the flour before it’s baked — and Wylie made the eggs. It’s been a lot of fun!”

To nail down the dish, the pair decided they wanted to create a sandwich with different textures of egg. They went through a few different versions until they found the distinct combination they were hoping for.

Will this be the savory version of the Cronut? You’ll have to find out this weekend. Like the famous pastry, these sammies will be available all day until they’re gone, starting at 9 a.m. But unlike Ansel’s other mash-up, which changes flavor every month, the Melt is only around through Monday. Each one goes for $20.