Where to Eat Donuts in NYC (2024)

By

Swathi Reddy

In a quirk of (pandemic) fate, acclaimed pastry chef and cookbook author Fany Gerson launched her newest spot Fan-Fan, this past October, in the same location as Dough, the shop she opened over a decade back. Her trademark Mexican flavors are also featured at Fan-Fan: everything from Mexican cinnamon tea, Oaxacan-inspired toasted milk with prickly pear, and other citrus-based combinations like the Luna Limón (lemon-lime glaze) and yuzu meringue. Globally-inspired donuts include mango lassi, miso cider, and Kafe’ Hawaij, a pecan donut made with a Yemeni-inspired spice blend.
How to order: Walk-ins accepted, open Wednesday-Sunday; delivery available via Grubhub and UberEats.

Vegan and gluten-free, Japan’s mochi donuts have fully entered the stateside donut lexicon, delighting many with their stretchy, almost spring-like texture. The donuts come in a variety of flavors, many on offer at charming Chinatown tea shop and bakery, Alimama, from matcha to ube to cereal. Mochi munchkins like royal milk tea and taro round out the menu, and the delicate, flaky boba cream puffs delight in size for what they may lack in pastry weight.
How to order: Walk-ups accepted, open daily except Tuesdays; online ordering available via Postmates,Seamless, andUberEats.

With decades in the donut business under his belt, Harlem native Todd Jones offers hot mini donuts at his shop Cuzins Duzin located inside DeKalb Market Hall—with a cheeky nod to childhood flavors like fruity pebbles and cinnamon toast, as well as cinnamon churro, caramel, s’mores Nutella, and funnel cake powdered. Also on offer are more grown up-appropriate seasonal options like Hennessy and Pink Moscato.
How to order: Walk-ups accepted in DeKalb Market Hall; online ordering available via DoorDash, Grubhub, and Caviar.

There’s an undeniable warmth that greets anyone stepping through the cobalt blue doors of Danny Meyer’s Daily Provisions, which has expanded from its original jewel box-size Union Square location with a larger additional space on the Upper West Side. This all-day cafe boasts many favorites from regulars (spectacular breakfast sandwiches, excellent coffee, and even ice cream), but it’s the magnificent French crullers that keep stealing the show. Pastry chef Christina Lisa offers three on the current menu–passionfruit coconut, maple, and cinnamon.
How to order: Walk-ups accepted; online ordering and pickup available by location; nationwide delivery available via Goldbelly.

While the gorgeous shock-of-pink Mexican hibiscus donut is among the best-known flavors at Dough, this beloved NYC chain (started over a decade ago by co-founder Fany Gerson who has since left) offers a slew of year-round, seasonal, and vegan flavors made with their signature brioche dough. Decadent toppings featured include passion fruit, chocolate-cacao nibs, and dulce de leche, with seasonal options ranging from cherry, violet and blackcurrant, cannoli cream (with pistachio), and blackberry basil.
How to order: Pickup or delivery via Flatiron location; online ordering available via Caviar, DoorDash, UberEats, Grubhub, and Odeko;nationwide delivery available via Goldbelly.

Long before current NYC mayoral candidate Andrew Yang was spotted there during his ongoing food tour, the Doughnut Plant had been offering nearly as many types of donuts as it does flavors—in almost as many locations city-wide. Sourdough or yeast, filled squares, or doughseeds. Vegan, gluten-free, cake, and more. And that’s before revealing the flavors: Valrhona chocolate, vanilla bean, marcona almond, passion fruit sour doughnut, peanut butter and blackberry jam, coconut cream, tres leches, and wild blueberry (just to name a few).
How to order: Online ordering available based on location; nationwide shipping available via Goldbelly.

Savory and sweet versions are available in equal measure at The Doughnut Project, a cheerful and vibrant shop that’s the brainchild of a former attorney and bartender duo who met by chance in NYC. Unusual flavor pairings include beet and ricotta, olive oil and black pepper, and The (famed) Everything Doughnut, which (like it sounds) has seeds of every variety, garlic, and sea salt. Sweeter offerings include black forest crème brûlée, chocolate ganache, Tahitian vanilla, and vegan options with coconut, maple, or cereal milk glazes. Boozy donut collabs have even featured vodka (most recently) and prosecco.
How to order: Walk-ins accepted, open Wednesday-Sunday; online ordering available via Chownow and Postmates.

The oft-hailed entirely vegan donut shop, Dun-Well Doughnuts, opened by Dan Dunbar and Christopher Hollowell (hence the name), is now in its tenth year. While they closed their St. Marks location last February, Dun-Well is in no short supply around the city—found in select Whole Foods and bakeries in Queens, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. Flavors currently on rotation include salted caramel pecan, almondine, maple French toast, chocolate cherry walnut, raspberry vanilla, chocolate peanut butter, and even a classic only-in-New-York black & white.
How to order: Open for takeout only in Brooklyn, open daily; online ordering via DoorDash, Postmates, and UberEats.

A Cuban-inspired oasis, this all-day vegan cafe offers patrons a pink-hued escape outfitted with gorgeous plants beneath rounded arches. Opened just last September, Guevara’s owners Alicia Guevera and Daniel Mekelburg (of nearby popular specialty food shop Mekelburg) present plant-based treats like their housemade donut with guava cream cheese, dark chocolate and cinnamon Abuelita donut, coconut donut topped with shreds, and more. Other delights include vegan chocolate croissants, babkas, cinnamon sugar twists–plus an incredibly tempting array of savory tortas, empanadas, and tostadas.
How to order: Walk-ins accepted, open daily; online ordering via Grubhub andSeamless.

Discovering her late grandmother’s recipe for leche flan led pastry chef Kimberly Camara (an Eleven Madison Park alum) to open Kora. Her Filipino heritage served as the guiding force, when Camara and her partner Kevin Borja created the intensely popular donuts, debuting them in the summer of 2020 from an apartment in Woodside—often selling out in minutes. Recent donuts on offer (they change weekly) included champorado, a sweet chocolate Filipino rice porridge; ube, a yam-based dessert; and pili, a type of tropical tree nut. Kora’s brioche dough forms the base, then they are paired with elements like ube custard, pili nut praline mousseline, house-made mora jam, and Camara’s grandmother’s flan.
How to order: Online ordering available via website on Mondays; check Kora’s Instagram for details to order.

This multi-generation family-run business has been a neighborhood fixture for more than 30years. Mike’s is a no-nonsense type of joint—evidenced by the cheeky signage (“There will be a $5 charge for whining.”)—featuring well over two-dozen classic flavors on hand, such as glazed, apple and cherry, jelly, chocolate or strawberry sprinkle, coconut, Boston creme, and old fashioned. There are also crullers of every variety (chocolate, glazed, vanilla french, plain), cinnamon buns, massive marble sticks, and donut holes.
How to order: Walk-ins accepted, open daily; online ordering via DoorDash, Seamless, and Postmates.

Star pastry chef Camari Mick (formerly of Le Bernardin and Eleven Madison Park) takes the helm at the most unexpected of culinary venues–a 1962 International Harvester truck dubbed MR All-Day, stationed just outside award-winning restaurant The Musket Room. Presenting a catalogue of delights each weekend, her sweet-and-savory menu includes a rotating selection of donut flavors—King Cake, grapefruit meringue, apple brown butter, guava cream cheese, and raspberry passionfruit. Ingredients are sourced, in part, from Greenlawn Farm in Rhinebeck, which also happens to be the original site of the vintage vehicle.
How to order: Walk-ups accepted, Friday-Sunday (parked in front of The Musket Room on Elizabeth Street).

For seven decades, this charming donut shop—still reminiscent of its 1950s origins and decor—has served Greenpoint daily while garnering a multitude of fans in New Yorkers across many generations. The current owners, Donna and Christos Siafakas, bought it in the early 1990s (Donna, inspired by a television show, sourced the retro-style uniforms which have become so popular with customers they’ve been lent as Halloween costumes). Amazingly, nearly everything is still done by hand (cutting, frying, finishing). Favorites include the red velvet, blueberry buttermilk, and toasted coconut, plus classics like the powdered old-fashioned, Boston creme, and apple crumb.
How to order: Walk-ins accepted, open daily.

Australian pastry chef Stephen Ry first gained stateside attention when he opened Mr. Holmes Bakehouse in San Francisco. Bringing his cheeky, cheery pastries to the Big Apple, he launched Supermoon with the same nonchalant attitude (the shop’s tagline: “Bite Me, NYC”) of irreverent fun. From croissants to his famed cruffins, Ry’s Supermoon reveals its flavors and offerings weekly. Donuts on rotation include churro, lemon and pistachio, passionfruit and blueberry, triple chocolate, matcha and blueberry jam, lime curd and passionfruit bay leaf jam—and even Ferrero Rocher.
How to order: Walk-ins accepted, open Friday-Sunday; online ordering available for Care Packs.

Upon arriving nearly six years ago, Wildair has been lauded for its inventive cuisine, its brilliant approach to natural wines, and cool-kid ambiance. Despite a pandemic-era pivot to solely sandwiches and pastries, Wildair is now tackling donuts. Chef Fabián von Hauske Valtierra’s latest creations include the creme brûlée donut (complete with its own sound effects), and a whole host of other decadent flavors (announced every Wednesday)—like tiramisu, Boston cream pie, snickers, citrus and cinnamon pastry cream, and ones filled with caramel creme diplomat, caramelized peanuts, and peanut nougat.
How to order: Walk-ups accepted; online ordering available via website, Caviar, and DoorDash.

Chewy, elastic, springy, bouncy, textured. The millet mochi donut, from pastry chef Danielle Spencer, of this acclaimed Taiwanese bakery (an offshoot of the original Win Son restaurant across the street) is clearly the star on offer—even garnering its own lineup of adulatory adjectives. The menu—influenced by Taiwan, Japan, France, the United States—includes plenty of pastries like the red rice donut, custard toast, laminated bolo bao (pineapple buns), and moon cakes, as well as savory breakfast sandwiches, burgers, fried chicken, small bites, and salads.
How to order: Walk-ups accepted for takeout, open Wednesday-Sunday; online ordering available via website,Caviar,and DoorDash.