167 West 74th Street, New York • 212.874.6080 • levainbakery.com/
Two things made me incredibly excited about checking out Levain Bakery – #1) They have GIANT cookies, like 6 ounces giant. They are good too – they won the “Chocolate Chip Cookie Throwdown” versus Bobby Flay. That’s pretty cool in my opinion and enough to get me in the door. But then there is #2) Levain Bakery was started not by professional chefs, but by two women who worked in the professional world, one in banking and the other in finance. They started working on the idea for their bakery and their idea of the perfect chocolate chip cookie while training for an Ironman Triathlon! These two are seriously my new idols.
Levain Bakery treats
Display case at Levain Bakery
During our visit to NYC, unfortunately I didn’t get to meet either of the owners, but I did get to meet their cookies! They were not kidding – they are huge. And so delicious looking. Levain Bakery is quite small, but it’s quaint and fun since the kitchen is right behind the register/display case so you can see your cookies baking in action. It was about one pm when we showed up and they were still baking which I definitely think is a good sign (it shows they have a lot of people coming through the door requesting their cookies, so no day old treats for me). I was in awe at the size of the cookie dough balls on the cookie sheets – I was ready to reach over the girl helping me and grab some. I resisted however and ate a perfectly baked cookie instead. It was still warm, so when I broke the cookie in half the chocolate chips were still kind of melty. So perfect!
- Chocolate Chip Walnut: Thick chunks of walnuts and warm semi-sweet chocolate chips make up this gigantic cookie.
- Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie: This cookie was dense, fudgy and chocolately just like a brownie. It was amazing.
- Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookie: Same base as the cookie above, but add in peanut butter chips. Yum. I mean really, who doesn’t want dark chocolate brownie-like goodness with melty peanut butter chips?
Other Facts:
- Hours: Mon-Sat: 8am-7pm; Sun: 9am-7pm
- Seating: Levain Bakery is pretty tiny – only about 3-4 seats, it is definitely the place for to-go desserts
- Other Locations: Two more locations: Harlem and the Hamptons Wainscott Village
- Delivery! Not in NYC anytime soon but still want to try one? They deliver nationwide! Check out their website for details
Giant Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookie - the picture is a little blurry but you can see how big it is - it's the size of my hand!
[…] make my table neighbors tough it out, but we had already stuffed ourselves with giant cookies at Levain Bakery so I decided Bouchon Bakery was just going to have to wait. Don’t worry though, I’m going to […]