NYC's 30 best bakeries

Dominique Ansel honed his skills as executive pastry chef at Daniel for six years before opening this American and French patisserie. Caramelized croissants, miniature pastel meringues and madeleines make up the sweet selections at the counter, in addition to Ansel's madcap creations like milk shot glasses made from chocolate-chip cookies and frozen s'mores on a stick. Of course, the Cronut is still going strong.

Pastry chef Umber Ahmad and partner Shelly Barbera (Brooklyn Fare, Aldea) have been running a wholesale operation online since 2014, cranking out famous cheesecakes and brioche doughnuts from a Harlem kitchen. Savory goods join the menu at this West Village location, along with brioche morning buns, fresh tarts, dark-chocolate brownies and a full-service coffee-and-espresso bar.

Haute pastry whiz Tomoko Kato's (Bouley Bakery, Le Bernardin) dessert tasting menu spotlights French-Japanese confections. Snag a seat for a three-course prix fixe including an amuse-bouche, your choice of sweets and petits fours. Pair your pastries with wine, coffee or tea. Items are also available to go. 

This cramped Italian bakery boasts best-selling lard bread studded with bits of salami and provolone, pillowy ciabatta and a pulse-quickening variety of cookies to choose from. Pick up an assortment of sweets the next time you're invited anywhere and emerge as the day's hero. 

You’ll find doughy fritters, not Tinkerbell, at this Greenpoint standby. Dip your lightly glazed raised doughnut into steaming coffee at the curved counter or box up a dozen still-warm chocolate cake rounds and black-raspberry jellies—just some of the 20-odd varieties baked daily.

This iconic Arthur Avenue bakery has supplied locals with Italian baked goods and wedding cakes since 1960. Pass time waiting in the shop's ever-present line by admiring the photos of famous visitors that line the walls, like Joe Pesci and Al Pacino.

Colloquially known as The One With the Burger Cake in the Window, this old-world bakery creates all manner of pretty special occasion cakes. For everyday affairs, it also has rows and rows of dainty mini-pastries, gelato and an abundance of Italian cookies. 

This bakery from Ry Stephen of Mr. Holmes Bakehouse in L.A., San Francisco and Seoul sells sweets like a charcoal-meringue–stuffed squid-ink brioche and a torched-meringue–topped Cruffin filled with coconut-lime curd. Its standout morsel is the NYC (New York Croissant), a buttery everything-bagel croissant packed with cream cheese, capers and chunks of lox. 

Still one of NYC's top cupcake creators after nearly twenty years, this LES bakery pulls double-duty as a coffee shop where you can sip java and eat your sweets on the spot. In addition to its permanent and seasonal handheld treats, Sugar Sweet Sunshine also makes layer cakes, pies, pudding and cookies. 

This NYC favorite, family-owned business has been in operation since 1986, and today it has locations in the Bronx and in East Harlem. Lloyd's titular item (available by the slice up to party-sized!) is an obvious star, and red velvet, chocolate, strawberry and pineapple cakes all grace the menu, too. 

Erin Patinkin and Agatha Kulaga expanded their popular wholesale bakery with their first retail location—a stylish 13-seat café decked out with herringbone tile and green-and-white patterned wallpaper. Pop by for a Brooklyn Blackout Cake (made with Brooklyn Brewery beer and salted chocolate pudding) or carrot ginger cake with honey buttercream.

Ricardo Barreras rethinks breakfast at this extension of Pilar Cuban Eatery. The casual menu is perfect for on-the-go bites. Or stay and nosh amid the kitsch of Miami cafés: an ’80s-style painting of a papaya, a fake marlin, geometric pastel tiling and a spunky neon sign that displays the shop’s name.

This sunny European-American bakery, opened by a pair of Philadelphia transplants, has established itself as a neighborhood favorite in Cobble Hill. Zachary Golper, formerly the head baker at French restaurant Le Bec-Fin, is the man behind the bread. The shop's name refers to its bread's “well done” darkened crust. The airy café offers a plentiful variety of baked goods, including breads, morning pastries, minitarts and open-faced sandwiches. 

Load up on homestyle sweets like fruit pies, brownies, cupcakes and red velvet cake at this snug bakery and café in Red Hook. The traditional apple pie is the best we've ever had.

The two South Dakota sisters who opened Four & Twenty Blackbirds learned pie-baking from their grandma, and her expert instruction is evident in varieties like lemon chess, rhubarb custard and salty honey enveloped in an exquisitely flaky crust. Linger at one of the comfy communal tables long enough, and you're bound to want another slice—and if you want to take home a whole pie, you'll need to order it at least 48 hours in advance.

You can always grab a great cup of coffee and a biscotti to go, but if you stay a little longer you'll be enticed by the gorgeous cakes, cannoli and deliciously creamy deep-dish cheesecake behind the counter. Savor your goods and marvel at the Neapolitan glass ceiling and Italian renaissance art decorating the walls.

If heaven has a scent, it probably smells a lot like Petee's Pies on the Lower East Side—buttery, cinnamon-y, carb-y. Set on bustling Delancey Street near the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge, the exterior doesn't scream cozy, but once you step inside the tiny storefront, you're surrounded by both modern and vintage touches. And co-owner and chef Petra Paredez incorporates the old with the new in her pastries as well, serving classic and old-school pie varieties like nesselrode (a chestnut-and-cherry pie from the 1940s), mince and almond chess, and other Norweigan-inspired baked goods.

Josh Ku and Trigg Brown's restaurant, Win Son, proffers inventive takes on Taiwanese-American bites. Now the duo has opened a bakery located across the street, serving excellent mochi donuts made in-house by pastry chef Danielle Spence. 

Jim Lahey has made his name selling some of New York’s best breads, at this essential bakery and other gourmet stores around the city. Toothsome round loafs get an extra dose of goodness from raisins, walnuts and olives; the bomboloni, or Italian-style doughnuts, satisfy sweet tooths of all ages with vanilla bean custard or a fruit jam filling.  

Pierre Hermé acolyte Olivier Dessyn fell in love with New York City during a vacation here, moved from Paris and opened one of NYC's best French-influenced bakeries in Greenwich Village. Inspired by NYU’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library across the street, Dessyn named his patisserie after the mille-feuille, a layered dessert that reminded the toque of a book. The baked goods­—macarons, cheese brioche and chocolate sables—are all great, but the real standout is Dessyn’s croissant. 

Burrow's frequently updated selection includes past favorites like the green tea opera cake and the banana tart. Take one or a bunch to nearby Brooklyn Bridge Park. 

This box-sized boulangerie—attached to the famed Balthazar restaurant—does a roaring trade with locals and tourists alike. It's flaky croissants, delightful pastries and sturdy loaves are deployed as a mark of quality at cafés and restaurants around the city.

As grown-ups we can have dessert whenever we want. But sadly we do not act upon that freedom as much as we could or should. There are few places where sweet treats are as much of an event as at the dessert bar at Patisserie Chanson. The cafe also has savory brunch fare in addition to its cakes, éclairs and tarts. 

Pastry whiz Christina Tosi conjures up homey sweets at this bakery spin-off from the Momofuku team. In recent years, Tosi has been a globally-recognized fixture in the food scene with countless partnerships and a her very own Chef's Table episode. Milk Bar continues to churn out whimsical sweets like cereal-milk soft serve. 

Doughnut fans surely know about Fany Gerson’s cult-favorite Dough Doughnuts. Now she’s gone out on her own with Fan-Fan Doughnuts, and the menu's replete with treats. Prepare to wait! Devotees line up for ever-changing options like Mexican cinnamon and glazed braided doughnuts.

Nonna’s cooking gets a refresh with Settepani’s recent renovation into an all-day café. The Harlem favorite will still offer its signature Italian dishes (order the Pizza Romana and gelato) in addition to sandwiches and salads to-go. Or hang out with a cup of Ethiopian coffee in the sunny room filled with artwork by local artists and live music on Thursdays with Harlem Jazz.

The cookies at Levain Bakery are the stuff of legend: Massive mounds that stay underdone in the middle, making them ideal for cookie-dough lovers. Don’t miss the lush, brownie-adjacent double-chocolate number.

When Keith Cohen bought this bakery from its founding owners, he wanted to expand on the century-old kosher spot’s old-world reputation by producing cutting-edge artisan breads. While he still makes Orwashers' famous Jewish rye, Cohen has remodeled the tiled-floor shop into a sunlit café, and now sells crusty European-style loaves and rustic “artisan wine” bread made with natural yeasts from the grapes at Long Island’s Channing Daughters Winery. 

Daily Provisions doles out house-baked breads (caraway rye, miche) and pastries (crullers in cinnamon-sugar, maple or original glaze) beside sister spot Union Square Café. The intimate space operates mostly for takeout, but there are a handful of high-top tables if you want to tuck in for gougères at breakfast and sandwiches at lunch. 

This is the first NYC location of Sydney's Bourke Street Bakery. Pastries and cakes include lemon curd tarts, carrot cake, ginger crème brûlée, and well as New York-only treats like a PB & J roll. The outpost also has savory rolls like lamb and harissa or eggplant, chickpea, feta and mint.

Looking for the best cupcakes in NYC? Head to these bakeries to try one of our favorite frosting-crowned beauties.