Portland's Blue Star Donuts Is Coming To Abbot Kinney
Boozy brioche doughnuts in flavors from blueberry bourbon to Cointreau creme brulee. (Photo: Blue Star Donuts)
Venice may have a haughty, heath-nut reputation for hating on all that intolerable gluten, but you wouldn't know it by the way it's been filling up with bakeries over the past year. Those baklava croissants from Gjusta. The crusty loaves from Superba Food & Bread. And now, just in time for bikini season, blueberry bourbon doughnuts from Blue Star, a Portland import rolling into the former Elvino space on Abbot Kinney this summer.
Flavors include Cointreau creme brulee, apple brandy fritter, chocolate ganache and original glazed, but the dough is what makes them special. They use a classic French brioche recipe, which takes 18 hours to make and ferment before going for a dunk in hot rice oil. From start to finish, premium ingredients are uncompromising: certified sustainable bread flour from Shepherds Grain, cage free eggs, organic whole milk, and European-style butter from Larsen’s Creamery.
"With all that's happening in the food scene in Los Angeles, particularly in the Venice Beach area, it truly felt like the right place for us to settle down and continue to grow the vision behind Blue Star," said co-owner Katie Poppe, according to the LA Times.
While the lineup changes daily, the AK location is going to get some all-new flavors, which will likely highlight locally grown ingredients. They'll also be serving Stumptown coffee and Steve Smith teas.
This will be the first Blue Star Donuts in L.A. There are four shops in Portland and one in Tokyo. Poppe's business partner Micah Camden is also behind Portland's Little Big Burger, a popular "fast casual" local chain, the type that tends to do quite well in Venice too if you ask Paul Hibler (Superba, Pitfire Pizza) or Oscar Hermosillo (Cerveteca LA). Could Little Big Burger be coming next?
Blue Star Donuts // 1142 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice 90291