Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studios in SoHo. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you are here. Today's show is going to be a snack or a full meal. We will be speaking with Paulie Gee and his wife Mary Ann. They are the owners of Paulie Gee's and the authors of the new cookbook Pizza from the Heart: 100 Recipes for Pies, Pasta, Salads, and More. We'll also talk to Barbecue hall of famer Meathead. He'll be here to talk about his latest the Meathead Method, and we'll speak with food writer Casey Elsass about his latest book. It is titled What Can I Bring?, but we are having dessert before we have a meal today. Let's get this started with where to find the best chocolate chip cookies in New York.

[music]

Alison Stewart: It has never been a better time to find a good chocolate chip cookie. The staff at The Infatuation recently visited more than 30 chocolate chip cookie joints around the City and they've ranked what they believe are the best in the bunch. The cookies include those that are thin and crispy and those that are more chewy and gooey, cookies with different blends of chocolate or nuts or cookies even made with brown butter, malted flour and, yes, homemade lard.

Infatuation senior writer Sonal Shah and senior staff writer Molly Fitzpatrick are with me in studio. They're here to discuss their cookie rankings as we want to hear your favorites, too. Welcome to the WNYC. Welcome back, Molly and hi, Sonal.

Sonal Shah: Hey, Alison.

Alison Stewart: When comparing cookies around the city, why is the chocolate chip cookie the standard?

Sonal Shah: I think for one thing, people have incredibly strong feelings about chocolate chip cookies. It's partly the smell, the brown butter, the caramelization. It's something a lot of people grew up eating at home. Like, there's a reason real estate agents bake it at open houses, according to legend, because it makes you feel good. I think for a lot of bakeries, even some of like the newest that are doing the most innovative, creative, inventing their own pastries, having a chocolate chip cookie on the menu is a great way to show off creativity within constraints, being like, "We all know what a chocolate chip cookie is, but here's our very specific, subtle take on it," and go ahead.

Alison Stewart: No go ahead.

Sonal Shah: I like to eat them, so I was really excited when we decided to do this.

Molly Fitzpatrick: Everyone has a good association with chocolate chip cookies and I think a really strong nostalgic factor too.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting because we've done a lot of segments about how bakeries have just taken off in New York. How much do you think that has to do with chocolate chip cookies?

Molly Fitzpatrick: I think that's part of it. I think it's every bakery has its own sort of specialty items, but everyone has to have a chocolate chip cookie, right? You can't not have one.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, let's get you in on this conversation. Where can you get the best chocolate chip cookie in New York? What's your favorite? Our phone lines are wide open and they are ready for you. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can call in or you can text us. Maybe it's a local neighborhood spot or a more well-known bakery. What are the qualities in your favorite kind of chocolate chip cookie? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Listeners in the wider tri-state area, you can get in on the conversation as well. Tell us about your favorite chocolate chip cookie in your town, too. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Molly, what do you think is the optimal time of the day to have a chocolate chip cookie from the bakery? Is it when they're freshest? Is it when they've been out a little longer. They get a little crispy. What are you thinking?

Molly Fitzpatrick: I love this question because a complication of this research that didn't occur to me in advance is it even varies bakery to bakery when the chocolate chip cookies come out of the oven. For example, I eagerly signed up to collect our cookie sample. We were testing from Radio Bakery in Greenpoint because I love that place. I showed up at open and simply they didn't have chocolate chip cookies yet. I had to circle back in about an hour and a half. First of all, there's a sense of like the right time to eat it is when you can get it at the bakery because bakeries are fickle creatures.

Truly, I feel like actually most often I don't enjoy-- not that I wouldn't enjoy it, but I don't choose to enjoy a chocolate chip cookie for dessert. I like it as kind of a snack. I think chocolate chip cookies in the morning are a little unrelated, provided you don't mind maybe an afternoon nap.

Sonal Shah: Yes, there were definitely some bakeries that we wanted to include that weren't actually making chocolate chip cookies the day we did our taste test, which is how we determined which was the best chocolate chip cookie. Dolly's, for example, a great bakery in Bed-Stuy has a chocolate chip cookie that we know and love, but we just couldn't get it that Thursday, unfortunately. We're gonna have to go back and maybe fold it back into the list.

Alison Stewart: That's fair, you can do an update. How would you describe the criteria you used for picking cookies? Sonal?

Sonal Shah: You know, everyone has their own preferences when it comes to cookies. We were very, very methodical about our taste test. We laid them all out on plates, numbered plates, and we had clipboards and little note-taking.

Alison Stewart: I would love to have seen that, by the way.

Sonal Shah: Yes, we have a behind-the-scenes video on our Instagram. You can check it out at The Infatuation. We went around taking notes being like, oh, this is crispy. We had to give each cookie a number out of 10. After that, we tallied up and then we debated and we did little brackets to narrow down. You know, you see that, like the way the cookie crumbles is that sort of the crowd pleasers rise to the top, the ones that everyone liked, you know. Then there are some more divisive ones that some people loved and some people were not so fond of. You see how preferences play in there, but I think our winner was unanimous.

Alison Stewart: All right, we'll get to the winner. What are the qualities in chocolate chip cookies that are important when you're comparing the cookies?

Molly Fitzpatrick: It's so interesting because no two people have the same platonic ideal of a chocolate chip cookie. This is true on a population level. This is true very much even among our staff. Some criteria you might look to and find you have a sweet spot yourself on are thin or thick, chewy or crispy. Do you want a lot of chocolate? A little. Do you want dark chocolate? Do you want milk chocolate? The list goes on. I think it was an interesting journey of self-discovery to have 32 cookies in afternoon.

Alison Stewart: Nuts. No nuts.

Molly Fitzpatrick: No, no nuts. Yes, exactly. That's huge. For example, I love a relatively thin cookie, but the most important thing to me is I love a cookie that exhibits the whole texture spectrum from crispy to chewy, like a little bit of everything. That really tickles my brain.

Alison Stewart: We are speaking about the best chocolate chip cookies in New York. The Infatuation has created a New York City chocolate chip cookie power ranking. I'm speaking with senior editor Sonal Shah and senior staff writer Molly Fitzpatrick. We are hearing from you. What's your favorite chocolate chip cookie in New York? Let's talk to Tom, who's calling from Scarsdale. Hi, Tom.

Tom: Hey, how's it going?

Alison Stewart: It's going okay. What are you thinking?

Tom: All right, now, this is going to be controversial, and I'm probably going to get beaten up by every New Yorker for this, but my favorite is Insomnia Cookies. My kids love it, but like my wife, my co workers, they all love Levain. I don't think Levain is that great. It's kind of dry, kind of--I don't know, it's just-- It's not-- I don't know if it meets the definition of a cookie, in my opinion. I have to just represent Insomnia for everyone in New York that loves Insomnia.

Alison Stewart: Thank you, Tom, for calling. We got a text, it says, "The best cookie chip ever, Levain." This is divisive. Levain. It's this ultra thick cookie. It's got. It has walnuts in it. Is that right?

Molly Fitzpatrick: Yes, you can get them with walnuts. Yes.

Alison Stewart: It's all the way down at 24 on your list. Why did Levain not land higher on your cookie ranking?

Molly Fitzpatrick: I think it was just process of-- You know, we liked pretty much most of or all of these cookies, and for some reason or the other, but I think it was just when you have 32 cookies in a conference room, you start kind of being very, very picky and you're like, what's the one I just want to eat next? Especially when you've had, like so many bites of cookie. That cookie is very rich. It's very thick. It's something that really hits at midnight or later in the day when you have a big glass of milk next to you, maybe.

When you're in a conference room, you kind of gravitating towards like a lighter, maybe like, daintier cookie, I think. I think that's maybe why Levain wasn't the biggest hit, but, you know, we still like it.

Sonal Shah: I had a surreal experience where after listening to me talk for weeks and weeks about cookies, I came home after a test, after our test to my partner and he asked me what was the top 10, and I told him and he was like, where is Levain, by the way? I say it differently every time. I took Spanish in high school. I'm so sorry. I was shocked that he was shocked. I didn't know I had a thick cookie lover in my house, who was equally shocked that he had a thin cookie lover in his house. Yes, I think just it's also such an iconic cookie. Like, we tasted a bunch that were clearly inspired by it. It's not my personal favorite, but actually, I'm fist pumping Tom through the ether because I kind of love Insomnia cookies. I'm not going to lie. I respect its fandom. It is definitely a beloved cookie.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Elaine, who's calling in from Queens. Hi, Elaine. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Elaine: Hi. Good morning, everybody. I don't know if anybody remembers when Hillary Clinton was running for president. Somebody made a comment about she shouldn't be in politics. She should be raising her kids. As an answer, she said, well, I could have stayed home and baked cookies. Then that didn't go over too well with a lot of voters. They had the Hillary Clinton-Barbara Bush Chocolate Chip Cookie Bake off contest, and each of them submitted a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I don't remember which one won, but the recipes were published, and I tried the winning one, and believe me, it was the best chocolate chip cookie I ever tasted. You can probably find it online.

Alison Stewart: You can find it online at the Clinton White House if you do a little googling. Thanks for calling, Elaine. Let's talk about Maman's. That's another one on your list. It also uses walnuts as well. It comes in at number 18. You call it one of the more sophisticated options in town. How is it sophisticated?

Sonal Shah: I think it's just a very classy cookie. It's got not just walnuts. It's got macadamia nuts, which are a very fancy nut to have in a cookie. I think it's got almonds as well. It's definitely a-- It's a complete cookie. It's refined. I think it has dark chocolate. Yes, it's a little, like, have it with a little espresso cookie [laughs].

Alison Stewart: The thin cookie lover in you. This is for you. The pastry box on East 12th Street. It does thin right. It's number two on your list. What does it get right when it comes to perfecting a thin chocolate chip cookie?

Molly Fitzpatrick: This is a perfect example of what I mentioned earlier. That chewy to crispy spectrum. The outside of that cookie, wonderfully crisp, but it just sort of yields as you get closer to the middle. It's also great chocolate. It's a little fruity. It's a salty cookie. Love it. Something especially charming about the pastry box is they have their standard chocolate chip cookie, but they also have a quarter pound size chocolate chip cookie, which would make a great gift or if you're having a particularly bad day, a gift for yourself-

Sonal Shah: -or great frisbee.

Alison Stewart: Well, check this text we got. The best was the half pound chocolate chip cookie at the defunct City Cakes in Chelsea. Oh, that place was great. On 18th Street. You went down. Oh, that place was great. It was crisp on the edges and gooey in the middle, but never under baked. Rumor has it their team team is planning a comeback. I'm so excited. I'm as excited too. Olin from East Harlem wrote, "Great chocolate chip cookie. Soft but not too soft. Distinct flavor, not too sweet." Okay, that's Olin in East Harlem.

"Best cookies in New York, Chip NYC in Astoria. They have expanded massively across the east coast, but the first one opened during the pandemic at 30th Avenue and 34th Street. They are more like more molten cakes scones than cookies. They started out as massive with more calories than two meals put together." How do you feel about giant cookies? I'm curious about that because that's two people who've mentioned these enormous cookies.

Sonal Shah: It all depends on context. If you're sitting at home alone having a cookie or you're walking down the street and you're like, I need a cookie, you maybe want a giant cookie. If you're taste testing 32 of them, they start getting a little scary.

Molly Fitzpatrick: That is true. That is true.

Alison Stewart: How did dark chocolate versus milk chocolate work out in your in your taste test?

Sonal Shah: You know, there was a really wide variety. I think. Something I noticed is a lot of our favorite cookies actually used both. In fact, the chocolate chip cookie, the triple chocolate chunk, I believe they call it at Honey's Bakery in Cooper Square. It's called triple chocolate because it actually has white chocolate as well, which normally is not something I look to in a cookie because I find it can be too sweet, but I love the chocolate variation. When you get something a little bit bitter, something a little bit sweet, you never know quite what to expect. Definitely. There were also, from like Maman, the more grown up cookies leaned more heavily on the dark chocolate.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Michelle, who's calling in from Tribeca. Hi, Michelle, thanks for making the time to call All Of It.

Michelle: Oh, my God. I'm so excited to talk to you about this chocolate chip cookie right now.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Love it.

Michelle: I work in Tribeca and we're kind of cookie connoisseurs in the neighborhood, and we always want to go to Rigor Hill Market, which is connected to One White Street. It's got two different types of chocolate. It's chocolate chip cookie. It's salted. It's perfect. I think the flour might be buckwheat. Like, it's got a really interesting texture to it also. It's definitely our favorite cookie. If we can make it before, like 12, then we can get one. Otherwise, they sell out pretty fast.

Alison Stewart: Thanks for the tip. We appreciate it. Let's talk to Lee. Hey, Lee, thanks for calling, All Of It.

Lee: Thanks for taking my call. I am going to boldly assert that the best, bar none, chocolate chip cookie in New York is in any household that does a good job of baking the original Toll House recipe.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Okay, wait, this is really funny. Both of them pointed at each other when you said that, Lee. Both of our guests.

Sonal Shah: We needed a control for our cookie tasting. Molly woke up super early and baked Toll House cookies, and they were actually there on the table.

Molly Fitzpatrick: They were not bad, I have to say.

Sonal Shah: Definitely at least a 4 or 5 out of 10, a few hours after baking. Yes, yes.

Alison Stewart: My guests are Molly Fitzpatrick and Sonal Shah from The Infatuation. They ranked the best chocolate chip cookies in New York. Hey, we want to know your favorite chocolate chip cookies in New York. What do you look for in a good chocolate chip cookie? Our phone lines are open. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can call in and join us on air or you can text to us at that number as well. We're going to go to Brooklyn Winner on 7th Avenue and Park Slope, number three on your list. They use malt flour in their cookie. How does that change the taste?

Molly Fitzpatrick: It changes it. It changes it for the better. It's really good. The comparison we keep going back to is like a malted milkshake, like a state fair or an old timey soda fountain. It's just a little bit of a nuttiness, a complexity. It's subtle, but it's lovely. We did have a little bit of a who's on first? Because the cookie from winner came in third in the tasting. Third place to winner was a little confusing to transcribe, but they definitely earned the bronze medal. They were great.

Alison Stewart: All right. Prospect Butcher Co. on Vanderbilt Avenue came in at number seven on your list. Their cookie uses house-made lard.

Sonal Shah: That's right. Yes, and it's a little salty. It's actually, it is a butcher shop. You can buy like sausage there, you can buy a sandwich there, and you can also buy a cookie, which I love any baked good with lard in it, like pie crust cookies, whatever, put in the lard, let's use that up. It was a little salty. One of my colleagues was like, it tastes like pepperoni, but in a good way. I couldn't agree more.

Alison Stewart: A chocolate chip cookie that tastes like pepperoni in a good way. Okay, what was number one on your list?

Molly Fitzpatrick: Red Gate Bakery in the East Village. I think it was unanimous. We all were blown away by that cookie.

Alison Stewart: All right, what was so special about this cookie?

Sonal Shah: Go for it, Molly. I mean--

Molly Fitzpatrick: Yes, the technical-- I think a good place to start is the name of this cookie on their menu is the Choco Toffee Cookie. I think as you're eating it, you don't necessarily know there's toffee in it. It's just so smart, right, because I think my favorite parts of a chocolate chip cookie are the milk solids browning in the oven, the brown butter, caramelized brown sugar, and that's what toffee is. It's so genius to just sneak toffee into your cookie and you've created a super breed of cookie. It was a lovely, nice salt.

Again, that beautiful crisp to chewy gradient. Also Red Gate Bakery, it's a tiny bakery, but they are punching above their weight. They're on our cinnamon roll guide too, for the best cinnamon rolls in New York City.

Alison Stewart: This says, "Gracie's Baked makes amazing gooey chocolate chip cookie bars and other flavors and does pop ups throughout the city. You can order them online. Some wild flavors and so delicious." Another text says, "Isn't nostalgia a big part of cookie preference?" Like what you had as a kid? Were you nostalgic during your tasting?

Sonal Shah: Yes, I mean, I actually hadn't really done this much chocolate chip cookie eating for a while because at The Infatuation, we sort of provide restaurant recommendations for every kind of dining situation. The bread and butter of our jobs is really going to restaurants. We dine anonymously, we pay for ourselves, and then we write about them. Then recently we started doing these taste tests to support the other guides that we do. Like, the best bagels in New York. Where do you find the best croissants?

Chocolate chip cookies was like the easy, no brainer next step, because I think a lot of people are looking for that comfort and nostalgia factor in their baked goods. Yes, it was an interesting reminder, to me, when we did this test that, yes, I do like chocolate chip cookies. I should eat more of them.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Carrie, who's calling in from the Bronx. Hey, Carrie, thanks for calling All Of It.

Carrie: Hi. How are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing great.

Carrie: My favorite is Levain. We're all pronouncing it different.

[laughter]

Sonal Shah: It's fine.

Alison Stewart: If we all know what we're talking about.

Carrie: Absolutely. My second favorite is, surprisingly, Gregory's, the coffee shop. They're all over. I know the one on the Upper West Side. They're crispy when they're cold and kind of gooey when they're warm. They're surprisingly delicious for a coffee shop. Then, although not New York City, New York, Armonk, New York, has a bakery called Beascakes, and it's definitely my number three.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling, Carrie. Since she mentioned Gregory the coffee shop. You have Seven Grams on your list, and there is one right across the street from WNYC, which a lot of people visit. Big fans around here at WNYC.

Sonal Shah: We visited right before this segment.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: What were your impressions of this cookie? Do coffee shops that have chains, are they different than the little bakeries, just out of your curiosity?

Sonal Shah: Yes, I mean, I think the experience is a little different when you go into a coffee shop and sometimes a bakery will have it fresh, while a coffee shop got it in the morning or whatever. We really liked. We hadn't had, you know, the vegan version at Seven Grams. We tried both this morning before coming here, and actually we preferred the vegan one. It's really, it's a nice cookie.

Alison Stewart: Elbow Bread. This one divided among you. The cookie at Elbow Bread is on Ludlow Street. It's 21 list. Their baked goods are very intriguing, shall we say? Where do you stand?

Sonal Shah: Well, I'm going to take this one because-

Alison Stewart: All right, you take that one.

Sonal Shah: -I loved the Elbow Bread cookie. Not everyone did. It's not for everyone. Basically, they have milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and a little bit of caramelization, I think, almost burnt sugar. The standout thing is they have little strips of nori seaweed running through the cookie. It's umami. It's a little bit bitter. I can just imagine having this cookie with a mug of hot black tea on a rainy afternoon. That's the vibe. If you like strange combinations, it's a great cookie to check out.

Alison Stewart: All right, Molly's looking off into the distance like, all right, I'm kind of hearing you, but not really.

Molly Fitzpatrick: Listen, I'll preface this by saying I have so much respect for Elbow. They're an awesome bakery, and I want so badly to be the type of person with a sophisticated enough palate to really rock with that Nori. For me, I was like, oh, they made a really beautiful cookie and they put seaweed on it for some reason [laughs], and the seaweed flavor. Then the next couple cookies I tasted, I had like a ghost of seaweed on my palate. I really, I mean, Sonal has impeccable taste and I think many people will agree with her that it's certainly a very singular cookie.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Dorian, who's calling in from Queens. Hi, Dorian, thanks for calling All Of It.

Dorian: Hi. Thank you. I hate to sound low rent and maybe it is nostalgia for me, but I sometimes just like to get those cookies they sell at the train stations, like Penn stations, the thick, cakey ones with lots of little chocolate chips on top.

Alison Stewart: Why do you like them so much? What do you think it is about that cookie?

Dorian: I don't know. You know, like I said, I think it might be nostalgia. Like, I think my dad used to get them for me when I was a little kid and we were going somewhere and-- if I limit it to the taste, it's kind of the texture and the feel of that thickness and the crumbliness in my mouth and, you know, that I can share. They're big, so I can share it with someone if I'm with someone else or take half home, you know. Yes, I think it's a combination of just enjoying the texture and the experience and the nostalgia.

Alison Stewart: You do you, go ahead. Let's talk to Richard from the West Village. Hi, Richard, thanks for calling All Of It.

Richard: Oh, hi. Thank you. I need to preface this before everybody starts shooting arrows at me, but when my son was growing up, we tried so many commercial chip, chocolate chip cookies and they were all horrible. Recently, a month or so ago, I tried a commercial chocolate chip that I really like, and it's the Trader Joe's dark chocolate with almonds. I mean, I don't know if I can compare it to bakery cookies, but it's a fantastic chocolate chip cookie.

Alison Stewart: Our engineer Julian is going, "I love them too. I love them too." You're right on. This is an interesting text. "When is a chocolate chip cookie no longer a chocolate chip cookie? You keep talking about complexity in cookies, but the beauty of the CCC is in their simplicity. Discuss."

Molly Fitzpatrick: This is such a great question. This is like, we talked about this so much, and I think to some extent we let bakeries decide. If they're calling it a chocolate chip cookie, if they're framing it as one, unless there's, I don't know, like, cotton candy and astronaut ice cream in the middle of it, I'm inclined to listen. Yes, it's--

Sonal Shah: I mean, yes, seeing them all laid out, you're like, oh, yes, of course. It is a simple thing. But then you see them and you're like, whoa. They're actually all so different. We could immediately recognize a couple of them, almost like-- Levain. We were almost 100% sure it was between 2 or 3, but we're like, one of those is Levain. One of these is Edith's, which is a super, super thin, chewy cookie that's almost like a fruit roll up in texture. Yes, it's interesting. They seem simple, but even the simple ones are different.

Molly Fitzpatrick: Edith is a great example of one that some folks on our team were not sure if we could really call it a true chocolate chip cookie. Edith's Sandwich Counter in Williamsburg in the West Village makes this Amba caramel chocolate chip. I love it. It is the texture of fruit leather. You could, like, roll it up. It's really salty. It's delicious. It's almost like, if you could imagine a chocolate chip cookie baker forgot their flour, but in a really good way.

Alison Stewart: You can eat this kind of chips.

Molly Fitzpatrick: They give you chips. They give you two. They come in pairs, so they're very thin, but you get your satisfaction. I could see somebody saying, that, to me, is not a chocolate chip cookie, but I love it, so to me, it is one.

Alison Stewart: You should check out The Infatuation's ranking of New York City's favorite chocolate chip cookies. I've been speaking with Sonal Shah and Molly Fitzpatrick. Thanks for joining us for this conversation. It was fun.

Molly Fitzpatrick: Thank you so much.

Sonal Shah: Thank you.