Despite Melbourne’s love of all-American food trends – think of all the burgers, po’boys and gumbo you’ve consumed over the past two years or so – the one area we’ve seriously lagged behind the States is in embracing the gourmet doughnut.

But where there’s a market gap there are always some enterprising individuals happy to fill it. Enter Walter McKenzie and Broadsheet’s own photographer Brook Miller, who have set up a pop-up shop at Mr Nice Guy in tandem with Anthony Ivey of Market Lane to bring you Doughboys Doughnuts and some of Melbourne's best coffee on rotation, including Market Lane, Seven Seeds and Coffee Supreme.

“The whole doughnut trend in America has been going on for about eight years, but when we checked out the local talent in Melbourne there was nothing that came close to the gourmet doughnuts there,” says McKenzie.

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The project started off as a joke between the two, but snowballed quickly – after ordering an American doughnut cookbook, doing some kitchen experiments and Instagramming the results, offers from cafes to stock their doughnuts followed astonishingly quickly.

Where Doughboys Doughnuts differ from your standard chocolate-glazed ring is that they are made fresh in limited batches and dipped in front of your eyes in some rather fancy flavours. Try the citrus stylings of the orange zest with pistachios doughnut, or the lemon zest with coconut. For chocolate fiends there’s the choc nut, with Monsieur Truffe cocoa and crushed hazelnuts and walnuts. Miller and McKenzie hope to experiment with a few next level flavours too: both maple bacon and toasted marshmallow doughnuts are on the cards.

With Market Lane in residence to provide you with a suitably classy brew to go with your doughnut, these sweet treats won’t last long on the shelves. The pop-up at Mr Nice Guy is expected to last for a month, then the boys will re-evaluate where to next. So if you want to start your morning grind with good coffee and a highly decadent doughnut, you’d better wake up that extra bit early.

Doughboys Doughnuts

Mr Nice Guy

Shop J, 535 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne

(enter via Healeys Lane)

Hours

Mon to Fri, 7am-11am