Like muffins, New York City scones are a great excuse to eat cake for breakfast.  Or, depending on where you get them, to eat cookies in the morning.  Or, basically, to have dessert any damn time of day you want.  We have an especially wide array of different types here in the city as New York is truly the Madagascar of scones.  Anywho, here is my list of 12 recommended scones.

I’ll start with my favorite scone, the raisin scone from Payard. [Payard is closed, try Francois Chocolate Bar for pastry- no scones or bread to date 3-1-2010] A very thin crisp shell with a sweet soft Challah-like inside.  The aroma of the center of this scone is one of the great food pleasures for $1.50.  Notes: Go early or they won’t have any left.  More on Payard.

The Maple scones from Blue Ribbon Bakery are almost like shortbread cookies. They are very small, sweet and flavorful with a thin layer of frosting.  Perfect if you are not in the mood for a full-on bread bomb.  More desserts from Blue Ribbon.

The goat cheese and herb savory scone from Clinton Street Baking Company has a thick, crunchy, textured crust and a very salty and flavorful inside.  This is a big scone that is fun to eat in the same way ripping off pieces of French bread is.  More Clinton Street Desserts.

Perhaps I should not have included the tiny savory biscuit-like scone from Dovetail since it’s only available with their delicious brunch.  However, it left an impression on me so I felt it deserved a spot.  Chewy on the edges like a buttery chocolate chip cookie but 100% savory almost like a cornmeal grain, butter rich biscuit that’s been cooked on a griddle.  More from DessertBuzz 5-star Dovetail.

The savory bacon cheddar scone from Bouchon is a highly textured and flavorful creation worthy of the Bouchon name.  More like a small specialty bread, this scone is not at all crumbly or buttery.  Notes:  You must go early to get these as they can be dry if you get them in the afternoon.  Check with the staff if you go after 12:00 to see when it was baked.  Also for god sakes, get a pastry here if you go.

The  chocolate strawberry scone from Alice’s Tea Cup packs tons of delicious dark chocolate and fresh strawberries.  Their crust is thick and the inside reminds me of buttermilk pancakes with starwberries and chocolate.  They are the biggest scones and most filling in this feature.  Perfect for fueling up for a long walk around Central Park.  Notes: ask for a hot one. It simply DESTROYS!   More from Alice’s Tea Cup.

The chocolate scone from E.A.T. definitely has some croissant in its bloodlines.  Very buttery, light  and flaky (um, like the inside of a good croissant?).  This is the opposite of the dense Clinton St. or Alice’s Tea Cup scones.  Notes: The dark chocolate in this scone is simply outstanding.  More from E.A.T.

.

The organic cranberry scone from Le Pain Quotidien is like a muffin but with an interesting glazed soft exterior that makes it stand out.  The tart cranberries and low sugar content also keep this from becoming too sweet. Notes: if you like your scones to be very distinctive from muffins you might not like this scone. More dessert from Le Pain Quotidien.

Forget the name of the scone I am going to describe here and just go buy one and enjoy it.  The vegan (yes vegan) chocolate chip scone from Whole Foods is really just a big thick less dense chocolate chip cookie that you can eat for breakfast.  It has coconut inside and some other great textures to go along with excellent dark chocolate chips and a crunchy crust, all for $1.79.  Notes: I said forget it’s vegan!  More Whole Foods here.

The currant scone from Bouley Bakery is a work of baking and culinary art. The cookie-like exterior is not buttery but is perfectly browned.  The inside is crumbly and not too sweet.  Like a less-sweet, less buttery slightly more dense shortbread cookie.  Notes: Try some other items while you are down there – almost everything is superb.

No review on New York City scones would be complete without the monster offering from the Levain Bakery.  A thin but crispy exterior layer and a super buttery smooth interior.  When hot, these scones are hard to beat in the more traditional category.  Notes: Monster size means you won’t need more food for hours.  Pair it with one of their world famous cookies and you could feed the entire Army Core of Engineers.  More Levain.

Honorable mention goes to the Street Sweets Truck oat currant scone.  Very textured, flavorful and extremely fresh, this is a perfect morning scone to go with your coffee.  Cake-like although not particularly scone-like in texture, you couldn’tt eat it as a stand alone dessert.  One to try if you can figure out where the truck is parked.  Try Midtown Lunch to see where their spot is.

Alice's Tea Cup, Best Scones in New York City, Best of New York City, Blue Ribbon Bakery, Bouchon, Bouley Bakery, City Bakery, Clinton St. Baking Co, Dovetail, E.A.T., Francois Chocolate Bar, Le Pain Quotidien, Levain Bakery, Sweets Truck, Whole foods | 8 Comments »

[This post was originally published in June 2009]

After success in a certain bike race, the DessertBuzz editorial team decided to head to one of their absolute favorite restaurants for dessert: Dovetail, on the upper west side.  One of the best things about Dovetail is that they constantly change their dessert menu.  Dovetail’s pastry chef, Vera Tong, seems to like to mix classic options with a few experimental desserts.  I still regret not trying the grape soup that I saw last winter, but I did eat the peanut butter pretzel with sea salt and beer ice cream.  Edgy, but not as hectic as Wd-50. . .

On Sunday’s Mother’s Day menu there were a couple intriguing choices but I had it narrowed down to either the pain perdu or the chocolate hazelnut fondant.  Normally, I always go with the chocolate option – that’s DessertBuzz Law #1: when in doubt, go with the dessert that contains dark chocolate. However, in this case,  I knew I still had 5 artisanal dark chocolate bars waiting at home that were going to be eaten this week so I went with the pain perdu.  Truth be told, I had to ask what pain perdu was.  But now, after reading all about it on the internets, I am of course an expert.  Pain perdu means “lost bread” and it was a way for people to reclaim stale bread by soaking it in eggs and milk and then frying it.  Which takes us to DessertBuzz law #2: when you can’t apply rule #1 go with the fried dessert option.  Of course DessertBuzz law #3 is:  If you ever see a dessert that is both fried and contains dark chocolate you must order 2 servings and take one home to photograph it for a feature on Dessertbuzz.

Anywho- the pain perdu was like a light, evenly fried, French toast saturated with a flavorful egg and milk mixture.  It looks like it was finished off with a blow torch too (but that is just speculation on my part).  The pool of caramel below the bread was even tastier than if it was made with real maple syrup.  The berries were 5-star as was the vanilla bean ice cream.  The picture really says it all. The also gave us 2 mini-red velvet cupcakes and 2 small tea cakes to take home. Damn I love this place.  I plan to talk some teammates into going back this week for more.

Best fancy pants restaurant desserts, Best of New York City, Dovetail | 1 Comment »

One of the best ways to experience a 3-star New York Times restaurant at a fraction of the cost, is to go for lunch or in this case for brunch. The Dovetail brunch is very dessert heavy. It includes a basket of fresh baked bread items; canapes, which include a yogurt parfait and a duck meatball amuse; a main course and a mini-dessert sampler. I should note some of the unique and heavy-duty savory brunch items such as short rib lasagna (!) and sirloin eggs.

It’s interesting that Dovetail has such a dessert-heavy brunch.   I have long been aware how how great their desserts are but I didn’t know their customer base felt the same as me until I saw the 4-dessert sampler and additional bread pudding pre-dessert. By the way, who ever heard of a pre-dessert for 3 course brunch?

My guest and I both thought the bread pudding, which came as the “pre-dessert”  was the best offering.   It was more like like a perfect, syrup-soaked piece of french toast.   I also really liked the devil’s food cake which packed a strong chocolate flavor but was not too heavy.  The apple crisp, which has been part of this brunch for a while is also very good.  The apple crisp is excellent, it’s very fresh and not too sweet.  The cheesecake, like the devil’s food, is a one-bite dessert that has a lot of house-made  components, such as the flaky cookie base and a blob of jelly.   The final dessert-bite was a brownie with whipped cream.

Recommended: Bread Pudding, also sometimes available as a “pain purdu”.

Dovetail is located at 103 West 77th Street.

Best fancy pants restaurant desserts, Best of New York City, Dovetail | 2 Comments »

With all the positive reviews and hype about Dovetail’s desserts and its pastry chef Vera Tong, I was scared of a massive let-down along the lines of Godfather III.  What if the desserts sucked? So it was with adjusted (though still sky-high) expectations that I went to Dovetail Saturday night for my sweetie’s birthday.   Dovetail upended those expectations, and then obliterated them.

Everything was superb, not just the desserts.   The service from the reception staff to the Maitre D’ and wait staff was friendly and warm.  Every dish on the chef’s tasting menu was exciting (though I regret upgrading to the grilled foie gras with cherries and fennel). Best of all our waiter had no issue granting us two different desserts instead of the standard identical tasting selections.

The pre-dessert on the tasting menu was a passion fruit pudding with “fizzy meringue” and raspberry sorbet.  This was more than just a traditional sorbet palate cleanser.  The meringue was tangy and slightly tart which contrasted really well with the sweet and flavorful pudding.  The sorbet was also tangy and all three textures went together really well.

I ate three full dessert courses (yes, it was J’s birthday not mine, what’s your point?).  My favorite was the S’mores dish.  This dish included (follow closely now): house-made marshmallows with coffee shortbread (dusted with graham crackers?) and three layers of chocolate: milk, semi-sweet and a 70+.  Served with ice cream.  The magic in this dessert was the crunchy snap of the shortbread cookies with the smooth and intensely flavorful dark chocolate in the the triple chocolate layer.  Like a 5-Star Twix made from the finest ingredients. . Next up was the bread pudding with caramelized banana and bacon brittle with vanilla rum ice cream.  Dovetail’s small-ish bread pudding was the opposite of Blue Ribbon’s famous monster serving of chocolate bread pudding. While Blue Ribbon goes big and features crunchy toasted bread dripping with chocolate sauce, Dovetail goes compact and throws in all kinds of flavors like that bacon and caramelized banana. The bacon, vanilla rum ice cream and cookie all work well with the caramel soaked bread.  Don’t tell Blue Ribbon bacon goes so well with bananas.

The peanut butter milk chocolate pretzel log with sea salt and beer ice cream (made with Guinness) seemed really experimental, like something from WD-50 (I had white beer ice cream in a dessert there once).  That was good, but this tasted better, again with multiple textures and flavors and savory sweet contrast.

They sent us home with some delicious house made peanut butter granola.  They also gave me a tour of the kitchen and introduced me to Vera Tong who took time to chat with me for a minute or two.  There is no question in my mind that she will be one of the next huge pasty chefs who will have name recognition beyond foodies.  I can’t wait to sit at Dovetail’s bar and try the rest of her current desserts this fall. . Out of all the high end restaurants that DessertBuzz’s budget allows me to take in, Dovetail is in my top 3 in the forward thinking dessert category.  Its right up there with Craft (while Karen DeMasco was there), WD-50, Ubuntu and Bouley in my humble opinion.

Dovetail’s website is here. Dovetail is located here. More of the “Best Fancy Restaurant” desserts in New York City.

Best fancy pants restaurant desserts, Best of New York City, Dovetail | 1 Comment »