Feature

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chewy or crisp, fat or thin, vegan or gluten-free—the modern chocolate-chip cookie comes in enough shapes and styles for everyone—even that rarest of species, the white-chocolate lover. Homemade might be best, but these blue-chip specimens come close.

Published May 21, 2005

Levain Bakery
Enough cookie to feed a family of four. Detractors decry as borderline raw. Cookie-dough freaks retort, “Exactly!”
167 W. 74th St.; 212-874-6080; $3

Jacques Torres Chocolate Haven
Not a contender by Toll House standards, but Torres’s “Mudslides” are certainly chocolatey, with plenty of chips. ’Nuf said.
350 Hudson St.; 212-414-2462; $2.50

Almondine
Fabulously chewy, moderately gooey, and absolutely delicious, with pools of sweet milk chocolate and a buttery, caramel ﬁnish.
85 Water St., Dumbo, Brooklyn; 718-797-5026; $1.80

Happy Happy Happy
Yeast-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free, not to mention on the dry side; but against these considerable odds, deﬁantly tasty.
157 Allen St.; 212-254-4088; $1.25

Hampton Chutney Co.
Although they buy the batter from a secret source and bake it off, homey good looks and taste would lead you to believe otherwise.
68 Prince St.; 212-226-9996, $0.75

Ruby et Violette
Maintains its melty, chewy, fresh-out-of-the-oven character for days and comes in dozens of weird flavors.
457 W. 50th St.; 212-582-6720; $1.25

Luscious Food
Crisp-edged but soft in the center, with a superb salty-sweet contrast, and pecans instead of archetypal walnuts.
59 Fifth Ave., Park Slope, Brooklyn; 718-398-5800; $0.75

City Bakery
It’s a thin volume, but into our Great Moments in White Chocolate History treatise go these “reverse chocolate chips”—dark dough, sweet white chunks.
3 W. 18th St.; 212-366-1414; $2

Tuller Premium Food
Chopped walnuts and fancy German chocolate, plus a chip-lover’s ratio of chips to cookie.
199 Court St., Cobble Hill, Brooklyn; 718-222-9933; $2