Best dessert places

Pastry chef–owner Hervé Poussot offers expertly made French pastries at this Water Street shop. In addition to Gallic goodies like croissants, brioches and tarts, Almondine serves American-inspired sweets like cheesecake, strawberry shortcake and chocolate blackout cake with peanut butter.

Purveyor of indulgent pastries and whipped-cream-topped einspänner coffee for Neue Galerie patrons by day, this Kurt Gutenbrunner’s outfit with marble tabletops, high ceilings and booths peering onto Fifth Avenue becomes an upscale restaurant four nights a week. Appetizers are most adventurous—the creaminess of the spaetzle is a perfect base for sweet corn, tarragon and wild mushrooms, while the palatshinken crepes get a buzz from the horseradish crème fraiche. Main course specials like the Wiener Rostbraten in a mustard sauce, pan-seared cod or the Wiener Schnitzel tartly garnished with lingonberries are all capable yet ultimately feel like the calm before the Sturm und Drang of dessert. Try the Klimt torte, which masterfully alternates layers of hazelnut cake with chocolate.

Pastry Chef Chika Tillman, the chick with a whisk, gives diners a voyeuristic thrill as she preps, pipes and plates her desserts in expert fashion. A multicourse “meal” may include an amuse-bouche such as coconut sorbet in a little pool of chocolate-infused tea gelée. The main course might be a warm chocolate tart with pink-peppercorn ice cream, a mocha-and-hazelnut trifle or a delicious fromage blanc cheesecake. It all ends with darling petit fours. As if you needed them.

Patrons at this Park Slope Belgian-French bakery and café can try homemade waffles, tarts and exotic ice-cream flavors (cantaloupe, muscat, ginger cookie), as well as wine and Belgian beer.

First, of course, you’ll need a doughnut to go with that morning coffee. The chubby yeast-raised babies here are fluffy yet substantial, glazed in a handful of rotating flavors including pear, caramel, blueberry and Valrhona chocolate.

Beginning at 7am, early risers can start their day with fresh breads, croissants and fabulous bomboloni (custard-filled doughnuts) at this café and bakery from chef Iacopo Falai. Although the former Le Cirque pastry whiz’s dainties are not to be missed, the inexpensive savory menu has highlights all its own. Try the hot, gooey whole-wheat lasagna or black-sesame–crusted tuna crudo.

A New Hampshire chocolatier opens its first New York store.

Having shuttered Batch and P*ong this past year, pastry whiz Pichet Ong makes his return as the consulting chef at this East Village dessert bar. Ong will meld Asian and Western traditions in creations like a white-miso semifreddo. Other sweets, such as cupcakes (mocha, green tea), cookies (ginger oatmeal raisin) and ice creams (toppings include lime curd and vanilla-poached persimmon) can be eaten in or carried out.

This Chelsea store offers housemade baked goods (we’re partial to their airy marshmallows and signature yumballs), along with giftware and other kitchen items.