The very best cookies in the U.S. to satisfy all cravings

B. Patisserie, a French bakery in San Francisco, is a James Beard Award winner and, in addition to incredible croissants and Kouign Amanns, bakes up near-perfect chocolate chip cookies. (There’s also a Cherry Oatmeal Toffee Cookie worth a detour.) Owners Belinda Leong and Michel Suas both have impressive resumes, with stints at top restaurants and bakeries in Paris, Barcelona, Copenhagen, and around the Bay Area. And to precede your cookie, don’t miss the savory options, including a range of open-face tartines.

Houston’s 'Sugar Fairy' (also known as Rebecca Masson) has cast a saccharine spell on the Lone Star city with her homemade fluffernutter cookies at Fluff Bake Bar. Drawing from the flavors of the dessert-like sandwich, she bookends peanut butter cream and sticky marshmallow with gloriously rich peanut butter and oatmeal biscuits. They’re so popular that Fluff Bake Bar goes through crates of the spreadable confection, which Masson, of course, sources directly from its birthplace of Lynn, Massachusetts.

It’s hard to go wrong with any of the baked goods at Lovejoy Bakers, a bustling mini-chain of PDX cafés. The cookies bring a much-needed shot of sugary cheer to the infamously rainy town. Opt for the ginger molasses, a soft, pliant number infused with warm holiday spices, or the chocolate crinkle, which is rolled and then baked in powdered sugar to form a crackly, nearly caramelized crust.

Be prepared to wait in line for cookies at Gideon’s Bakehouse, which are baked fresh at locations around Orlando including in the East End Market and at Disney Springs. Here, owner Steve Lewis has crafted creative cookie recipes that you won’t find anywhere else: Pistachio Toffee Chocolate, Candied Walnut Chocolate Chip, Banana Bread Chocolate Chip, and more. These big, half-pound cookies boast a solid layer of toppings coating the cookie's exterior. Think a massive blanket of chocolate chips! Don’t forget to arrive early and note that they limit customers to just seven cookies per order.

At Levain, an Upper West Side nook in Manhattan, size matters. Seductively gooey on the inside and golden brown on the outside, this Holy Grail of cookies is the size of your head and big enough to feed you and at least some of your friends. Semi-sweet chocolate morsels and chunks of walnuts mix and mingle, making each buttery bite better than the next. The only thing worse than waiting on the long line out the door is the sinking feeling you’ll get when you’re left with nothing but crumbs.

It was the owners of another beloved local institution—Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream—who convinced baker Robin Wehl Martin to start slinging cookies full-time. Since opening Hello Robin in 2014, her Capitol Hill shop has built up a massive, sugar-seeking following craving this sweet-spicy chocolate chip cookie, which rounds out its habanero kick with notes of orange and vanilla. Pro tip: In the summer months, ask for a scoop of Molly Moon’s to form one of the best ice cream sandwiches in the Pacific Northwest.

With multiple locations around Philadelphia, Famous 4th Street Cookie Company gets its name for a reason: they have more than 28 flavors of cookies and have been churning out fresh, hot treats for more than 40 years. Stop by the Reading Terminal Market, where you can browse other food purveyors for selections like a White Chocolate Macadamia Nut, Blueberry Muffin, and, of course, a classic Chocolate Chip (theirs is “big, thick, fresh, chewy, and oozing with genuine chocolate chips.”) 

Chocolate lovers, rejoice. The decadent, fudgy creation at James Beard-nominated pastry chef Lauren Mitterer’s excellent Charleston bakeshop, WildFlour Pastry, doesn’t skimp on the good stuff. The double chocolate cookie has a crackly, almost meringue-like shell that gives way to a creamy center dotted with Callebaut chips, firmly cementing Mitterer’s position at the top of Charleston’s burgeoning food scene.

Make no mistake, when we say the cookies crafted by baker Tina Rexing at her shop, T-Rex Cookie, are big, it’s not an exaggeration: her oversized chocolate chip cookie – studded with bits of caramel and finished with flaky sea salt – comes in at a whopping eight inches wide. But thanks to an overnight stay in the freezer and the magic of a convection oven, each half-pound disc possesses the perfect ratio of crispy to chewy. They may be sized to share, but it’s not hard to finish one all by yourself.

“Make life sweeter, eat dessert first” beckons the chalkboard menu inside Joanne Chang’s cozy café—the problem, though, isn’t when to start, but what to start with. For the uninitiated, the cookies offer a buttery gateway into the James Beard award-winning chef’s repertoire of comforting, yet sophisticated pastries. Take her gourmet Oreos, for example, two intensely rich chocolate wafers sandwiching a changing rotation of luscious cream fillings.

It’s hard to make a cookie taste ethereal, but somehow Anthony’s Cookies has found the magic formula. San Francisco has been going nuts over this small bakery since it opened in 1997, baking fresh cookies daily in iterations of chocolate chip, toffee chip, candied pecan, double dark chocolate and more, both seasonal and constant. If you’re gluten-free, they have a couple of options for you as well, but the overall winner is Anthony’s cookies and cream: Standard cookie batter blended with crushed-up Oreos. We’re kind of in love.

Pastry chef Karen Hatfield has created a brunch mecca Sycamore, where crowds flock to the charming eatery for pork belly hash, ricotta and buckwheat blintzes, and pastries galore. The cookies here are worth writing home about, though, particularly the chocolate chip rye version; it is not too sweet and has the perfect balance of a chewy interior and crunchy exterior. Three of these guys make for an indulgent brunch, if you’re not in an egg mood.

Downtown pastry darling Christina Tosi brings her cultish sweets to the Upper West Side with this fourth location of Milk Bar—the largest yet, with 20 seats. Find her signature treats (crack pie, compost cookies, cereal milkshakes) alongside Stumptown coffee. The bakery does its own version of the Momofuku empire’s famed pork buns: Here they’re made with slow-roasted pork shoulder seasoned with hoisin and sriracha. Vegetarians can opt for buns stuffed with braised shiitakes, caramelized onions, and smoked red chili pepper flakes. Get either with a soft-poached, deep-fried local egg.

Located in the heart of Georgetown, Baked & Wired is a family bakery has been providing the local community with cookie-sized deliciousness since 2001. Everything on sale comes from family recipes and handcrafted coffee from roasters all across the country. Trying to just pick one item from the menu is hard enough, but if you're struggling with the agony of choice, then you absolutely, positively must try the bakedwich: Chocolate cookies and vanilla ice cream rolled in chocolate chips. 

In May of 2002, Sweet Mandy B’s opened its doors to share its traditional, baked comfort desserts with the public. With its pastel colors and old-fashioned décor, this neighborhood bakeshop evokes a sense of warmth and nostalgia. The Confetti Cookie is a sweet, buttery and totally Instagram-worthy favorite with the Chicago crowd and the best part is that you can buy both mini bite size and an impressive, pizza-sized 12 inch too.

True to its name, the cookie specialists at Rogue don’t play by the rules. Not only do their creations possess tongue-in-cheek names like 'I’m Not a Snickerdoodle' and 'WTF,' but the flavor combinations are just as playful and unconventional. The most surprising is also one of the most popular—a ranch dressing-inspired round that balances the savory punch of garlic and onion with a burst of bright citrus.