27 of the Best Desserts in NYC

Jose Coto’s 188 Cuchifritos is a palace of pork, a lunch counter that purveys a tail-to-snout array of succulent products like soft ears, meaty stomach, bouncy morcilla, garlicky pernil, and golden chicharrones. The appropriate foil for all these fatty, salty wonders is a drinkable Dominican dessert: the regal morir soñando. Staffers pulverize fresh oranges into juice, then mix the pulpy beverage over ice with a vanilla-laced condensed milk. The sugary, creamsicle-like creation cleanses your palate of all the rampant salts and jolts your body out of a pork-induced torpor.

Folks might come to JJ Johnson’s Fieldtrip for the stellar gumbo or soft beef brisket, but a meal here wouldn’t be complete without one of the better new entries in the city’s deeply competitive soft serve category. The kitchen blends rice milk, raspberries, and hibiscus into a cool, purple-hued treat ($4.50). It doesn’t pack the lusciousness of a milkier gelato, but that’s not the point here; the point is to lower your core temperature with fruit and sugar — and without any dairy. The soft serve here is vegan, and it’s light enough to inhale.

In the streets of Jakarta and Surabaya, the dessert known as martabak manis is ubiquitous, griddled-to-order in all sorts of sweet and savory flavors. The Indonesian pancakes are considerably harder to find in the five boroughs, but Astoria’s Papa Don is home to more than a dozen varieties, done up with condensed milk, coconut flakes, coffee, and ube. The cakes come in individual servings — two of any flavor for $7 — or family-style, sliced into 14 pieces, each with a different topping ($18). Everything is made to order, so be sure to call ahead.  

End every meal at Daniel Boulud’s flavor-packed ode to southern France and the Mediterranean with the refreshing grapefruit givré. The kitchen spoons sorbet into a hollowed-out grapefruit shell, tosses in fresh segments of the fruit and citrus marmalade, and tops it off with sesame foam and rose loukoum, before sealing the grapefruit with a brûléed orange sugar tuile ($21). Finally, halva candy floss is placed on top of it all. The end product is crunchy, crackly, chewy, icy, silky, tart, and perfumed.

Joe Allen’s is famous as a post-theater hangout, a place for Broadway spectators and working actors to grab an ice cold martini and a juicy, medium-rare hamburger in a packed room. But it also serves an unexpectedly excellent dessert: a fat slice of banana cream pie ($12), a layer of slow cooked tropical fruit underneath layers of custard and schlag. It is both rich and cooling, making it the perfect foil for another martini.

This deceiving dessert may look like an average halved avocado, but it’s actually a key lime pie parfait set on top of citrus-y ice and a smear of eucalyptus yogurt. The $19 parfait is made in an avocado-shaped mold and spray-painted to resemble the ombre of a real avocado. According to Eater critic Ryan Sutton, it’s “a five-year-old’s dream of what an avocado might taste like, before actually biting into one and realizing it’s oily, fatty, and overrated. The Stupak avocado is pastry as escapism. And it’s delicious.”

Kakigori, the Japanese specialty of a towering mountain of flavored shave ice, is having a serious moment, and Stephanie Prida’s version at the Lobster Club is undoubtedly one of the city’s standout versions. The airy concoction ($23) is a foot high, with flavors that change seasonally. Past flavors include blood orange and cream, reminiscent of a Creamsicle, and pumpkin chai.

Chefs Ignacio Mattos and Maxime Pradié — with the help of baker Louis Volle — have given New Yorkers a proper reason to hang out around Rockefeller Center for reasons relating to charcuterie, pastries, anchovies, and desserts. The flauta al cioccolato, a pain au chocolat that looks more like a golden candy bar than traditional viennoiserie — it’s nearly as crunchy as a Butterfinger — is your go-to option when taking out. Still, sit-down patrons would be well served to try the estimable budino di riso ($12). The kitchen cooks up a rice pudding that’s as rich and al dente as good risotto; it sits atop a layer of red wine-poached grapes for an added hint of sugar and acid.

Danielle Boulud’s Midtown fine dining palace is an expensive restaurant, with prix-fixe option at $125 and tasting menus at $155 (vegetables) and $195 (seafood). But here’s a little trick: diners can order a la carte at the bar, which boasts some of the restaurant’s best views of the nearby Chrysler Building. So consider swinging by the lounge just for dessert, particularly the noisette. Chefs pair milk chocolate crémeux and hazlenut nougatine with praline croustillant for a silky, crunchy, Ferrero Rocher-like affair.

Blessed with a dessert menu by famed pastry chef Claudia Fleming, Ci Siamo is an easy bright spot in the Hudson Yards-adjacent Manhattan West complex. Of particular note is the $12 lemon torta, a tangy sliver of creamy lemon filling on top of a paper-thin crust. Each bite is tart and buttery, and alongside it all is a faultless sidecar: torched meringue shaped into a tiny bowl and filled with olive oil.

Even those who aren’t particular fans of steakhouses will find that Hawksmoor, a U.K.-based chain, is worth visiting for the cocktails and sweets alone. Notable desserts include the classic sticky toffee pudding, a bracingly tart citrus and passionfruit sundae, and perhaps most apt for pandemic era dining, a takeout box of so-called tributes — little chocolates filled with salted caramel, passionfruit, and bourbon and pecan ($20).

The husk meringue is one of the most written-about (and Instagrammed) dishes on the menu at Enrique Olvera’s groundbreaking Mexican restaurant in Flatiron. The slightly savory corn mousse is topped with a sugary husk meringue that gives the dessert a perfect balance of flavors and textures.

Olive oil gelato lovers will delight in Don Angie’s fior di latte mochi ($8). The dessert comes to the table at this West Village Italian-American restaurant looking like a ball of mozzarella cheese, when in fact it’s mochi that’s stretched around milky fior di latte gelato then topped with olive oil and sea salt. This dessert is all about stretchy and chewy textures, coupled with the subtle flavors of olive oil and high-quality cream.

Patricia Howard and Ed Szymanski’s British seafood spot specializes in British desserts. Think: vanilla posset with passion fruit and meringue or a classic sticky toffee pudding. In the summer, lucky diners might encounter an outstanding cherry tart, but right now, Szymanski offers a bit of bright winter citrus. Enter the yuzu tart, a puckery and aromatic curd garnished with a bit of zest and a generous dollop of whipped cream (around $12). Pair it with one of the venue’s many mezcals under $20.

The warm, house-made honey butter chips are stellar bookends to a meal at modern Korean restaurant Oiji. Get them as is for a pre-dinner snack, or have them with vanilla ice cream for a dessert that’s salty and sweet, hot and cold, and creamy and crunchy ($16).