United States of Cookie: America's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
Winslow's Home; St. Louis, MO
This rustic urban restaurant and café makes a buttery, shortbread-esque cookie studded with a combination of Guittard semisweet and bittersweet buttons. The locally milled unbleached flour is responsible for the cookie's signature chew, which pastry chef Cary McDowell prefers over crispiness.
Levain Bakery; New York, NY
Co-owner Connie McDonald developed the Upper West Side bakery's mountainous semisweet chocolate chip–walnut cookie as a post-Ironman training treat a decade ago: "It felt so good to eat one after a 10-hour bike ride," says McDonald, with a laugh. Just ignore the implication that you need to have a triathlete's metabolism to eat the whole thing. The crisp shell gives way to a wonderfully thick, gooey, cakey interior.
Rustica Bakery, Minneapolis, MN
The bittersweet chocolate cookie is the sleeper hit at this Minneapolis bakery known for its European breads. The cookies are deeply colored and richly flavored with bitter cocoa and Callebaut chips, then baked to a pliable texture with a crackly, sugar-dusted top. Each bite is a decadent treat: "Some people claim they can eat more than one, but I don't know about that," says co-owner Barbara Shaterian, with a laugh.
Tartine; San Francisco, CA
The husband-and-wife dream team of bread genius Chad Robertson and pastry chef Elisabeth Prueitt created a large, flat chocolate chip cookie that follows the expert bakers' axiom that darker color means better flavor. Their cult bakery's cookie — made with oatmeal, walnuts, and Valrhona Guanaja chocolate — is baked until it's beautifully deep brown, with a caramelized butter flavor and a distinct crispiness.
Beurre & Sel from Dorie Greenspan; New York, NY
Beloved cookbook author, blogger, and baking authority, Dorie Greenspan, goes brick-and-mortar at a tiny storefront in the Essex Street Market, where she sells her masterful double chocolate World Peace Cookies: a base of dense chocolate sablé dough (a French-style shortbread) made with local butter, studded with hand-chopped bittersweet Valhrona chunks and a hefty measure of fleur de sel. Greenspan's recipe, which was given to her by renowned Paris pâtissier Pierre Hermé, calls for nearly equal measures of chocolate and flour, making for an ultrarich cookie that Greenspan describes as "very seductive," with the power to engender happiness and world peace in each bite.
MILK; Los Angeles, CA
The signature Ooey Gooey Chocolate Chip at this cute ice cream parlor and bakeshop is a rich, molten mass of a cookie, made from three types of chocolate (cocoa powder in the cookie base, plus hand-chopped milk chocolate and bittersweet chunks). The ultra-chocolaty concoction runs on the small side, just 3-inches or so across, but each bite packs dense flavor.
Two Fat Cats; Portland, ME
When this retro-style bakery says it makes everything from scratch, it's not an exaggeration: The bakers even prepare their own brown sugar by adding fresh molasses to granulated white sugar. Their cookies — crisp on the edges, soft in the middle, with bittersweet chocolate chips — have a simple, back-to-basics look and taste.
The Sycamore Kitchen; Los Angeles, CA
At this hip new breakfast and lunch café from the husband-and-wife team that also owns Hatfield's, the pastry chef Karen Hatfield continues her fabulous dessert streak. A former mentee of the American pastry star Claudia Fleming at Gramercy Tavern, Hatfield has a passion for tweaking classics, as evidenced by her thick, chewy, bittersweet chocolate chip-rye cookie with sea salt and a hint of caraway. "We probably made 20 different kinds of chocolate chip cookies before settling on this one," says Hatfield. "I love the punch the rye flour packs — it adds great texture and an earthy depth of flavor to the whole thing."
Clear Flour Bread; Boston, MA
Using copious hunks of Scharffen Berger bittersweet chocolate at her tiny Brookline, Massachusetts, bakery, owner Christy Timon created a big, thick, and chewy Chocolate Chunk cookie well-suited for dark-chocolate loving adults. "There's a pretty powerful amount of chocolate packed in there," she says. "They're not really kid cookies."
Cookie Bar; Chicago, IL
A newfangled cookie specialist with a kitschy 1970s disco aesthetic, the bar offers a dozen kinds of chewy-crisp chocolate chip cookies, from the classic to a spicy version made with jalapeño chiles. Most of the cookies feature bittersweet Callebaut chips, and all have a dash of homemade vanilla extract made with a variety of spirits: The tequila-based version contains an earthy note, while the rum one is caramelly and slightly floral. Online only; cookie-bar.
Tartes Fine Cakes and Pastries; Philadelphia, PA
This pretty, tiny hidden gem in Old City has no seats inside — just a sliding takeout window where customers pick up jumbo, extra-thick chocolate-pecan cookies. They're made with high-butterfat butter and Callebaut semisweet chocolate chips, and baked until golden brown for a result that's crisp-chewy.
Zingerman's; Ann Arbor, MI
The Funky Chunky Dark Chocolate cookies at this iconic Ann Arbor, Michigan, delicatessen (which also operates Zingerman's Bakehouse) have a rich, rounded flavor thanks to organic unrefined muscovado sugar from Mauritius. There's nothing truly funky about these cookies, but the chunky comes from hunks of Callebaut semisweet chocolate and walnuts pieces, both of which contribute to a firm, dense cookie.
The Flour Shop; Orlando, FL
What started as a custom cake business has evolved into a full-service bakery in a Winter Park, Florida, strip mall. The company's soft, chewy cookies are thin but distinctly jumbo in diameter, and are Orlando Weekly's pick for the best cookie of 2012. Customers who order in advance by the dozen can opt for the Triple Play cookie, which is packed with three kinds of chocolate: Semisweet, milk, and white.
Macrina Bakery; Seattle, WA
Olivia's Chocolate Chip Cookies (named for owner Leslie Mackie's daughter) are a classic Toll House-style cookie (soft and chewy) with semisweet chocolate chips and a sprinkle of gray flour de sel. The dough is made with a combination of butter and shortening to provide a soft, rich crumb, and rests chilled for 24 hours before baking. The process ensures an even bake for every batch, because the moist ingredients like eggs have time to thoroughly penetrate the mixture.
More Great Ideas
There's so much this great nation has to offer. Check out more best of the U.S. from Food & Wine:
How Hooters Is Plotting A Comeback
This Is What Happens When You Eat Too Many Strawberries
7 Melatonin-Rich Foods For A Better Nights Sleep
The Truth About 'Love Island's' Food & Drink Rules
