Cronut King’s Latest Creation Looks Like a Pretzel Bear Claw

Updated August 8 at 11:30a.m.

Have the cronut king’s novelty pastries jumped the shark? We’ll find out sometime before dawn on Saturday, when the line starts forming outside Dominique Ansel’s Soho bakery for his latest oeuvre: the pretzel lobster tail.

Introduced on Good Morning America Thursday, the $8 invention is comprised of pretzel dough wrapped around a buttercrunch-peanut butter filling and comes with a warm dipping sauce made from whipped honey and browned butter. The entire concoction is “sprinkled liberally” with Maldon sea salt.

Sounds delicious. But ever since Ansel captivated us with his doughnut-croissant hybrid last spring, his subsequent novelties — the waffogato, the frozen s’mores — have been a lot less thrilling. And then there’s the dubious move of announcing the new pastry on national TV, which has already prompted one food writer to implore, “Please stop distracting from all that by appearing on national television to introduce pastries like they’re the next iteration of the iPhone … You’re better than that. ”

Not that we’d turn our nose up at the chance to try one.

Update: Dominique Ansel heard my plea and invited me to his bakery to try the pretzel lobster tail one day before it goes on sale. What surprised me most was the generous amount and distinctive taste of the peanuty brittle filling. (Ansel told me the nuts are caramelized and salted before they are ground down into a butter.) And there was so much dipping sauce that I brought some home to spread on toast later. The verdict: tasty, and extremely filling.