William Greenberg Desserts

There’s no cookie with an identity so inextricably bound to New York as the black and white, and the best ones are found at William Greenberg Desserts on the Upper East Side. They’ve been making these since 1946, so it’s safe to say they know what they’re doing. The cake base has a deep vanilla flavor and manages to be appropriately dense yet implausibly light at the same time. The frosting is on the softer side (if you like the snap of royal icing, this is not the cookie for you), but it’s well-balanced. If you’re not much of a chocolate person, they also sell the Amerikaner variation, which is essentially an all-white black and white.