Magnolia Bakery

You know what? Magnolia Bakery makes a good cupcake. Yeah, there are now about a million locations and it’s kind of a tourist trap, but Magnolia didn’t get famous by serving dry, flavorless cupcakes. Their classic vanilla cupcakes taste like dipping a stick of butter in a bowl of sugar, in a good way, and the red velvet and chocolate flavors are textbook examples of the form. The original location is on Bleeker Street in the West Village, and yeah, it’s kind of charming in that “I love New York” kind of way. Their beloved banana pudding is also very much worth the hype.