The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie In New York City
Who is the tastiest cookie of them all? [Photos: Robyn Lee]
Our Preliminary Rounds:
It's been a long, cookie-filled few months on Serious Eats.
I've subjected my poor officemates and loyal tasters to more rounds of tasting than many would be able to stomach. We've nibbled our way through more than six dozen different cookies—some good, some bad, some transcendent. I don't think I ever properly appreciated the beautiful diversity of chocolate chip cookies, until now. The variations really are quite remarkable.
Still, some are indisputably better than others. After six formal blind taste-tests, hundreds of cookies behind us, and a final half-dozen follow-up taste-offs to ensure consistency—we're ready to declare a winner. The Top 11 Countdown, listed after the jump and in the slideshow above.
11. Yura on Madison
10. Alice's Tea Cup
9. Max Brenner
8. Pret a Manger
7. Baked
6. Dessert Club
5. Almondine
4. Blue Ribbon Bakery Market
3. Levain
2. Bouchon Bakery
And the winner... Tom Cat Bakery and The Roasting Plant
"A gorgeous cookie--bumps, nooks, and crannies. Chewy, crispy. An absolute ideal." There wasn't much we didn't love about the Roasting Plant's chocolate chip cookies--the winners of the Chocolate Chip Cookie Championship.
Their secret? We'd been assured the Plant baked their own cookies—and they do. But their dough? It comes from acclaimed NYC wholesaler Tom Cat Bakery. Their recipe uses pastry flour and Callebaut chocolate, and other shops, including Colador Café, Ground Support, and City Bean carry these cookies—but The Roasting Plant is the only place to bake them in-house, turning out fresh chocolate chippers at least four to five times a day. What can we say? It works. Score one for freshness.
Roasting Plant, two locations: 75 Greenwich Avenue, New York NY (map); 81 Orchard Street, New York NY (map)
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21 Comments:
I don't like these slideshows- the way they open in another window, you have to come back here to comment, they take a long time to load.
also, i disagree. i still vote for dessert club as #1!
spartana07 at 10:06AM on 01/18/10
Yeah, not a fan of these slideshows, either. Each picture takes a good 20-30 seconds to load on my computer.
Maybe you could keep the slideshows (the pictures *are* lovely), but also include a plain text list of the winners after the jump (for those of us without super fast Internet connections).
cochon at 11:09AM on 01/18/10
Gonna just on the slideshow disliking bandwagon. Might I suggest looking into something like this? http://smoothgallery.jondesign.net/getting-started/
looloopoopie at 11:40AM on 01/18/10
roasting plant..right next to my apartment the whole time, who knew.
Alex_of_Troy at 11:49AM on 01/18/10
Curious as to what the winner was. Not curious enough to sit through a zillion slides on the way.
Dave114 at 11:54AM on 01/18/10
I completely agree, I can't stand the slideshows. I liked it better when I scrolled down on one page to see all the photos.
jl89026n at 1:16PM on 01/18/10
wow. I have to try the bouchon and the roasting plant cookie. In terms of cookies I seriously cannot imagine anything being better than Levain's chocolate chip walnut cookie. I don't know if my mind can take such a thing. Seriously, I might have a seizure if I taste a better cookie.
daffyduck at 1:27PM on 01/18/10
Another one who can't stand the slideshows. I want that cookie, though (haha).
masalha at 1:37PM on 01/18/10
I'm focusing on the seriously delicious cookies we discovered. Carey did an amazingly comprehensive job gathering chocolate chip cookie specimens. The Roasting Plant was the real shocker, but they just kept winning taste tests. We tasted them three different times against Bouchon Bakery's one on one, and the Roasting Plant cookie (via Tomcat) more than held its own every time. But if a crisp, small chocolate chip cookie is what you're after head for the Blue Ribbon market. Conversely, if you want a dense, chewy cookie that could double as a paperweight, then Levain is the cookie for you.
Ed Levine at 1:56PM on 01/18/10
God, awful slideshow. Hopefully you clicked to the comments before laborously clicking though each slide.
THE WINNER:
Roasting Plant / Tom Cat Bakery: "A gorgeous cookie—bumps, nooks, and crannies. Chewy, crispy. An absolute ideal." There wasn't much we didn't love about the Roasting Plant's chocolate chip cookies—the winners of the Chocolate Chip Cookie Championship.
Their secret? We'd been assured the Plant baked their own cookies—and they do. But their dough? It comes from acclaimed NYC wholesaler Tom Cat Bakery. Their recipe uses pastry flour and Callebaut chocolate, and other shops, including Colador Café, Ground Support, and City Bean carry these cookies—but The Roasting Plant is the only place to bake them in-house, turning out fresh chocolate chippers at least four to five times a day. What can we say? It works. Score one for freshness.
Why the slideshow? More clicks equals more page views, equals more ad views equals more money!
darn at 2:27PM on 01/18/10
Thanks. I gave up 4 slides in.
thoomin at 3:24PM on 01/18/10
whoah now...i like the slideshows. they're not the most convenient, but i'm always interested enough to click through.
Christina at 4:36PM on 01/18/10
I don't have any of the slow loading issues the rest have, but a slide show of solitary choc chip cookies? How boring was that???
Paula Maack at 6:48PM on 01/18/10
Great job guys! That seems like an awful lot of.. uhm, research? :) Anyhow it's good to see how it wrapped up! Interesting to hear about the source of Roasting Plant's cookies.. has anyone else noticed it feels like a sauna in there? Just sayin'...
dbdtron at 10:16AM on 01/19/10
listen to @darn
clickthroughs = money. that's the model for ad-driven websites like SE. i mean, they could turn SE into NYTimes... metered pay wall. Then you can get all your pictures on one page!
anyway, be thankful SE is free. any site with rabid fans could get away with a subscription model.
foodinmouth at 10:23AM on 01/19/10
Kudos to Carey the SE NY crew for this massive and comprehensive review. You definitely dug out some unknowns that are really great. Who knew Bouchon would do so well? I have always loved that cookie but many of my friends always said it was too heavy and had no crisp... That Roasting Plant cookie was also a find - never knew they were so good. I think this is a great top 11 - I would only have added Jacques Torres "chocolate discs with some added cookie dough" cookie to the list :)
DessertBuzz at 9:08AM on 01/20/10
@DessertBuzz: Thanks! The one fault we did have with Bouchon is that we, too, thought it could have used more crisp, but flavor, crumb, and chocolate were so off the charts that it did well regardless. Everyone wanted to eat that cookie. In the end, Jacques Torres was too dry and, yes, too chocolatey for our purposes--but if that does it for you, then by all means, eat away :)
Carey Jones at 9:13AM on 01/20/10
I just went out and got a Roasting Plant chocolate cookie (3 blocks from work, lucky me). It was exceptional.
shallot at 1:32PM on 01/20/10
I've eaten them all. But, I have no idea how some of them got into top 10. I don't think it's fair to judge the cookies baked freshly everyday and the cookies baked, who knows how long ago, and kept in a cookie jar or plastic bag, who knows how long. The latter taste stale. You guys are not making this fair. I tell you which one. Alice's tea cup, Yura on madison, Blue Ribbon bakery are really bad in the top 10. Also, even the same cookie taste completely different just out of the oven and cold one. I'm sure you know about this though.
thebirdie at 6:33PM on 01/22/10
@thebirdie: Our procedure was pretty straightforward: we tested cookies from different slices of New York against each other, and then entered them all in one big, final taste test.
And of course a fresh cookie will taste better than one that's less fresh. We purchased these all from bakeries the day of competition and tasted them an hour or so later; on our end, there was no cookie aging! We wanted to replicate the experience any customer would have walking into a store. If they're not baking fresh, that's part of the problem.
Carey Jones at 6:56PM on 01/22/10
I understand what you are saying. But, if they are selling the cookies in a cookie jar or in a package, from next time, you should avoid them. Because we can never replicate the same experience.
thebirdie at 7:30PM on 01/22/10