A single pastry that manages to reference a dim-sum staple, French patisserie, and the tomato-egg stir-fry that Ma’s mother cooked for her at home in Taiwan is but one of the many complex, globally collaged items on the menu of Papa d’Amour, which is Ansel’s “exploration” of Asian bread culture, as he puts it. More than that, it is a manifestation of love for his two children (the enfants to his papa) where customers will be able to find loaves of shokupan and sandwiches made on that Japanese milk bread (plain or laminated); pretzel-salt-crusted Chinese custard tarts; and a banana bread Malay cake derived not from the humble American home-baking staple but of Malaysia’s more elegant, fluffy, steamed sponge cake.

The Papa is particularly excited about a scallion-basil “blossom,” which, you’d never guess unless he told you, is his take on a Taiwanese scallion pancake. “I wanted something I can pull apart,” he says. He’d seen the way the pancake’s dough is fluffed by hand to give it a flaky, almost shredded surface and a chewy middle and wanted to come up with something that mimics that interplay. He was trained in France, so his mind went to two kinds of brioche: a regular version to encase the scallion component in the middle and a laminated, layered crown to encourage ripping.

“A contrast of texture for me is important. Not just the contrast of flavors,” he says. “I’ve been playing with contrast for my whole life.” The approach is evident in an “iced chocolate soufflé,” which is like a potable version of the dessert, and a honey-soy-glazed, laminated brioche nest that Ansel calls the Hot Dog Sticky Rice Spiral. It’s his ideal food to start the day: “One of the first dishes that Amy ever made for me was a sausage on rice and fried egg — I loved it,” he says. “It’s been like a breakfast in our family for a very long time.” At the bakery, the sausage is Kurobuta black pork from Japan, which sits atop sticky rice cooked in shallot oil with shiitake mushrooms, scallions, and soy.

Of all the pastries I tried, the one that most impressed me was the Taro Puff Mochi Doughnut: Ansel wanted a fried doughnut with a dense, creamy interior and a light, lacy coating. The deep-fried, Chinese taro puff stands out on dim carts for its honeycomblike texture, which requires a high level of skill and copious practice to achieve. Ansel decided to mate it with a mochi-based dough.

When he asked some seasoned Chinese chefs for advice, they told him he’d be foolish to try and shouldn’t bother. So he turned to YouTube, watching hours of videos in Mandarin to figure it out and devise his own method. “It’s all painful to make,” he says, “but we figured out a way.” His finished product has a vanilla-infused center and a ribbon of strawberry-guava jam. Its airy, crunchy exterior really does taste like taro. (This is what a Cronut might be if it got a Ph.D. in structural engineering.)

Ansel has been working on Papa d’Amour for a decade now — it would have happened sooner were it not for COVID — but it seems certain that lines will accompany its opening on May 22. The team will roll out the menu slowly, but the taro puff doughnut will be available to eat (and post) on day one.