Best Dessert in Manhattan

Levain Bakery

A West 74th Street basement bakery from Pam Weekes and Connie McDonald — opened 1995, six-ounce chocolate-chip-walnut cookie shaped like a hockey puck, line out the door for thirty straight years.

Because Levain's six-ounce dome is the original and the underbaked-center texture has not been replicated by any of the cookie shops that opened in the post-2018 cookie wave, despite serious effort.

Order Original chocolate-chip-walnut cookie, warm, with a small whole milk.

Skip the line by going at 8 a.m. on a weekday — the bakery opens at 8, the cookies are warm, and the cult tourists do not arrive until 11.

Dominique Ansel Bakery

Chef Dominique Ansel's Spring Street bakery — opened 2011, world-famous for inventing the cronut in 2013 and for a rotating chef-pastry program nobody else in Manhattan attempts at this scale.

Because Dominique Ansel is the only Manhattan pastry chef of the last decade who has invented a globally-imitated dessert format, and the cronut flavor of the month genuinely changes the recipe rather than swapping the glaze.

Order Cronut (current month), DKA caramelized croissant, frozen smore.

Pre-order the cronut on the website two weeks ahead — the in-person window line starts at 6 a.m. and is locked once daily inventory is gone, which is usually by 9 a.m.

Lady M Confections