Levain Bakery: The Best Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookie on the Planet

February 5, 2008

Yes, I went that far; the planet and maybe the universe. Look at that mountain of chocolaty cookie euphoria. Have you ever seen something so knee-buckling-ly delicious? I realize that was a mouthful but so are Levain Bakery’s Cookies, easily weighing in at almost half a pound each, SERIOUSLY, half a pound of buttery, crumbly decadence.

Read on for a look at more of the mouth-watering, spine-melting insides…

There’s not much NYC Food Guy can say about these cookies that you can’t all ready see for yourself:

I always marvel at a cookie whose surface belies its insides. Crisp, and crumbly becomes chewy and transcendent with every bite. That’s how it is with Levain. You can sense the adventure your taste buds are about to undertake as you hold one of these cookies, lightly inhaling that magical scent, transporting you back to age five, watching and waiting with dire anticipation for Mom’s cookies to appear from the oven, golden brown and delicious.

For those wary of walnuts, forget your fears.

Unless you fear is allergy based. Otherwise, the walnuts have a small but important presence, adding a subtle flavor which balances out the sweetness of the chocolate volcano lurking within.

Levain is easy to miss. It’s down a small flight of stairs on the north side of 74th St. about 20 feet off of Amsterdam Avenue.

Levain offers 3 other varieties of cookie:

Oatmeal Raisin with a hint of cinnamon and full of oatmeal and plump raisins. May well be the best Oatmeal Raisin cookie NYC Food Guy has ever had.

A Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookie which is more like death by chocolate than Levain’s self-proclaimed “chocolate lover’s dream”. These are made with dark chocolate cocoa and semi-sweet chips and are so buttery and rich, I recommend small bites spaced apart in a timely manner. Seriously.

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies, called “the perfect combination of dark chocolate and peanut butter chips.” Believe it or not, I haven’t tried this one. It’s hard for me to not get the Chocolate Chip Walnut. Based on the track record though, how could you go wrong?

Levain also serves an array of breads, rolls, and other baked goods. I’ve spied some seriously gooey sticky buns with a disappointing lack of white frosting and some brioche dessert bread sticks in cinnamon or chocolate, both of which ended up being somewhat lackluster.