Where to Find Atlanta’s Best Cookies
Cookies are the Michael Jordan of desserts (the definitive GOAT, even though people love to debate that fact).
There’s no treat more comforting even though it can take on so many different forms: thin and crunchy, warm and chewy, crammed with pecans, dunked in chocolate…I could keep going indefinitely. But instead, I’ll list the tastiest and most unique cookies all over Atlanta.
(note: this list does not include larger chains like Insomnia and Tiff’s Treats. While they are indeed delicious, we are trying to highlight smaller local businesses.)
Juniper Cafe Cookie – Juniper Cafe
If you couldn’t tell by now…we love Juniper Cafe. This Pan-Asian Vietnamese restaurant has ridiculously good food, like Vietnamese Hot Fried Chicken and Pho, but their cookie might just be the highlight. It’s massive and chewy and crammed with pecans, oatmeal, and chocolate chips. You can also add a scoop of vanilla…and by that I mean you will add a scoop of vanilla.
NOTE: Juniper Cafe is temporarily closed for dine-in.
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Various – Munster Cravings
Munster Cravings (originally Monster Cookies) is one of the brightest spots in West Midtown’s Chattahoochee Food Works. It’s a black-owned business that specializes in one thing and one thing only: cookies. Theirs are fresh, warm, gooey, chewy, crunchy, and everything else you’re looking for in a cookie, whether it’s chocolate chip or PB&J. No matter what you’re eating at The Works, there’s always room for one of these.
“Evil Cookie” – Muss and Turner’s
Muss and Turner’s is one of Smyrna’s most beloved restaurants, known all around the state for its world-class sandwiches. But it’s equally notorious for its “Evil Cookie,” so named because a customer ate one in 2005 and claimed she’d been possessed by the charms of the cookie (now that’s a solid get-out-of-jail-free card). These cookies are simple but perfectly composed: stuffed with Cordillera dark and milk chocolate chips and local pecans. It’s been named the best cookie in Georgia by the AJC, an honor second only to its inclusion in the Atlanta Eats best cookies list.
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Macaron – Cafe Vendome
Atlanta’s premier French cafe is Cafe Vendome. You can bank on getting all your French favorites here – Jamon Buerre, Tartine, Croque Monsieur, Crepes – but there’s one French delicacy that reigns supreme: the macaron. These delicate, cloudlike cookies require an artisanal touch and walk a fine line between perfection and disaster (just ask my girlfriend whenever she makes them). Thanks to years of practice and refinement, Cafe Vendome delivers a consistently phenomenal macaron time after time.
Chocolate Chip Cookie – Corner Cafe
While some might argue a cafe needs to worry about their sandwiches, soups, and salads, what it really needs is a good cookie, and Corner Cafe has one of the finest in town. It’s a cookie of contrasts: perfectly chewy yet with a nice bite, sweet but with complexity from the rest of the cookie dough. Simply put, it’s delicious and, whether you’re having breakfast, lunch, or coffee along with it, don’t leave Corner Cafe without a cookie in tow.
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Various – Sugar Shane’s
Cookies are generally about comfort, thanks to familiarity. You may think of chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, or sugar when cookies come to mind, but Sugar Shane’s is turning the cookie on its head. While they have a few standard flavors, they mostly specialize in bold and innovative concoctions like the Buzzin, with a coffee base and topped with Oreos, dark chocolate chips, caramel chips, an espresso buttercream filling, and a coffee glaze. Or there’s the Cookies and Cream (cookies and cream on a cookie, AKA cookie-ception) loaded with white chocolate chips, Oreos, Hershey’s cookies n’ cream bits, and vanilla extract.
Peanut Butter Stuffed Cookie – Four Fat Cows
Four Fat Cows is first and foremost an ice cream spot (with a surprisingly good dill pickle flavor), but when you see their cookies, it’s hard not to add them to your haul of sweets. The stuffed cookies are the best move, adding texture as well as extra flavor. This Peanut Butter Stuffed Cookie takes an already fantastic peanut butter cookie and simply stuffs it with even more peanut butter, which is, per science, a good thing. It gives you the sensation of eating a spoonful of peanut butter in addition to the already rich experience of eating a cookie.
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Black and White Cookie – General Muir
I could rave about the virtues of the black and white cookie but Jerry Seinfeld already nailed it: “The thing about eating the black and white cookie is you want to get some black and some white in each bite. Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate. And yet somehow racial harmony eludes us. If people would only look to the cookie all our problems would be solved.” When it comes to one of the best deli cookies, you know one of Atlanta’s finest delicatessens nails the assignment. Bonus points because they change up the colors to reflect various holidays (like Chanukah blue and white in the above post).
Chocolate Chunk Pecan Cookie – Alon’s Bakery and Market
Alon’s is one part bakery, one part restaurant, one part market. It’s that bakery section that’s responsible for their award-winning Chocolate Chunk Pecan Cookies. Some cookies lean on a more subtle hint of chocolate, but Alon’s goes full send with chocolate stealing the show in every single bite. Add some pecans in and you’ve got yourself a hell of a cookie.
Dream Cookie – The Buttery
The Buttery is a one-stop shop for all things baked and/or homemade. While they’re perhaps best known for their pastries and breakfast sandwiches, their Dream Cookie alone is worth a visit. The cookie of Chef Jen Yee’s dreams, it contains chocolate chunks, coffee, oats, pecans, and coconut. It will soon be the cookie of your dreams, with its salty, chewy, crunchy, and sweet bite. You might want to get two.
Chocolate Chip Cookie – Breadwinner Cafe & Bakery
Sometimes the art of a cookie lies in its simplicity. Breadwinner Cafe does many simple things exceptionally well, and their cookie is a masterclass in great ingredients mixed and baked to perfection. The chocolate chip cookie is hard to beat (just look at all those chocolate chips!), but they also make a mean Oatmeal Raisin, Peanut Butter, and Heath Bar version. They’re giant enough to share with a friend, but why not treat yourself to the whole thing?
