By now it’s pretty widely known that Dutch Girl Donuts, the iconic shop on Woodward that occupies a spot in the metro Detroit food pantheon alongside the greats like Faygo, American Coney Island, and Loui’s Pizza, is once again open under new ownership.
The obvious question is: “Is the new Dutch Girl as good as the old?” We decided to investigate, and ate more doughnuts in a week than most people probably eat in a year.
When it comes to new owners restoring a favorite old food business, there are plenty of pitfalls and questions. Did they get new equipment? Does the old seasoned equipment simply impart that classic flavor in a way that the new does not? Did they use the same recipes? Did they use the same kitchen staff? Did they decide to buy ingredients from a different supplier, either because they cheaped out or upgraded or wanted to use a friend’s company? Did they cut any seemingly unnecessary corners?
Even the subtlest change can screw up the end product.
The new owner is Paddy Lynch, who among other ventures is behind The Schvitz bathhouse, and he brought on a team that includes Jarred Gild, who helped run Western Market in Ferndale for 14 years. They decided to keep all the original recipes, but Gild concedes they didn’t know much about making doughnuts, and there are a lot of ways to screw up a yeast-raised doughnut, which is what a deceptively complex treat.
One has to consider humidity, barometric pressure, and temperature. If they are under-proofed then they come out too dense, if they are over-proofed they suck up oil and are heavy, greasy, and gross. So among the first things Lynch’s team did was track down re-hire as much of the old Dutch Girl crew as possible.
“It’s very much a craft to get the doughnuts right and that expertise of the staff coming back — that’s what made it work,” Gild says.
They also stuck with the same suppliers, and felt no need to upgrade as Dutch Girl already used high-quality ingredients, Gild says. They would have used all the original equipment, he adds, but someone stole a bunch of it while the restaurant was closed. Since there aren’t a ton of doughnut shops opening annually, the new equipment had to be custom made.
So what’s the verdict? Yeah, it tastes like the OG Dutch Girl that I remember. It’s awesome.
Dutch Girl does yeast-raised doughnuts, which are lighter and airy, and cake doughnuts, which are a bit denser and crumblier.
Among the highlights was the Bavarian cream, with rich filling and a lovely chocolate frosting slathered across the top. The red velvet doughnut hole, which Gild said is sort of a combination of yeast and cake styles, is also excellent. Dutch Girl is partnering with Royal Oak’s Ray’s Ice Cream to do a red velvet doughnut ice cream, which they’ll be samping it at the shop on the weekend of July 5.
The sprinkle doughnut, a new addition to the roster, comes coated with a thick layer of sprinkles and frosting, and is as bright in flavor as it is visually. The glazed doughnut with apple filling is relatively chill in comparison and I loved it. A surprise was a cinnamon raisin doughnut with a nice sweet and mellow flavor, and interesting texture with the pops of raisin.
Those I didn’t love were more a matter of taste than quality. Folks — I don’t care who is making it, lemon filling in doughnuts is weird and unnatural. Ditto for the coconut.
The fruit-filled strawberry and raspberries doughnuts are solid with the right ratios of filling and casing, and the chocolate doughnut with chocolate frosting is super intense — my kind of dessert.
Dutch Girl is still getting its footing and nailing down consistency, Gild says, and there have been a few naysayers who claim the doughnuts aren’t the same as when their grandpa brought them some in the 1980s. The new owners can’t bring grandpa back, Gild jokes, but all in all, he and Lynch and the old team did it right. Dutch Girl is still Dutch Girl, and Detroit is blessed to have the institution restored by a crew that didn’t feel the need to mess with a winning formula.
Location Details
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated where Ray’s Ice Cream is located. It is in Royal Oak, not Berkley.
