2025 Best Desserts in America
The New York Times Food staff is made up of dessert people. No restaurant meal is complete without a request for a few spoons, or a sly “I’ll just have one bite.” As we ventured across the country for months of scouting trips to find the best restaurants of the year, we didn’t neglect sweet treats. Here are our favorite desserts of 2025. MARK JOSEPHSON
Dulce de Leche Flan at Franciska Wine Bar
Portland, Maine
In Argentina, flan is typically served with a spoonful of caramel-scented dulce de leche on top. At this tiny Argentine spot, the dulce de leche is incorporated directly into the flan, sharpening the eggy custard with a toasty, burnt-sugar tang. While the dense texture walks the line between pudding and fudge, the flavor is decidedly bittersweet, a perfectly balanced bite to end your meal of grass-fed beef empanadas and a bottle of Mendoza Criolla Chica. ($14) MELISSA CLARK
111 Middle Street, Portland, Maine; 207-835-0086; franciskawinebar.com
Ajisai Wagashi at Yamada
New York City
A meal at Isao Yamada’s serene kaiseki counter speaks to all the senses, and the final taste is no exception. Made with a miniaturist’s eye for detail, this wagashi — a kind of Japanese sweet that traditionally accompanied the tea ceremony, to ease the bitterness of the tea — is molded from shiro-an (white bean paste) and adorned with wobbly agar jellies in colors coaxed from butterfly pea flower and dragon fruit, to evoke a hydrangea in blossom. Listen closely and you can hear the pop and rustle of carbonated sugar. It sounds like rain. (Part of a $295 prix-fixe menu) LIGAYA MISHAN
16 Elizabeth Street, New York City; 646-429-8759; yamadanewyork.com
Sesame Balls at Diane’s Place
Minneapolis
The delicate, barely sweet sesame balls are served hot from the fryer, with thin, crackling shells, unexpectedly light and airy inside. (The pastry chef Diane Moua followed a tip from her mother, adding potato flour to the rice flour base.) Arriving with a side of red bean caramel if you’d like to make them sweeter, they’re exactly the right way to end a meal and make everyone at the table happy, even those who thought they didn’t want dessert. ($12) TEJAL RAO
117 14th Avenue Northeast, Minneapolis; 612-489-8012; dianesplacemn.com
Blueberry Bread Pudding at McLoons Lobster Shack
South Thomaston, Maine
Lobster-shack dessert menus typically begin with ice cream and whoopie pies. They pretty much end there, too, although you might see strawberry shortcake at a shack that’s particularly ambitious. So coming across the blueberry bread pudding at McLoons is a bit like wandering into Gray’s Papaya and discovering that they serve an excellent Grand Marnier soufflé. The blueberries are the small, concentrated wild kind, picked a few miles up the coast. Also folded in between the cubes of white bread are white chocolate chips, nearly invisible, not at all traditional and somehow welcome. As required by an ancient New England law, there is a vanilla custard sauce. For a dessert served at a seasonal establishment with no indoor toilets or running water, it’s impressively accomplished. ($6) PETE WELLS
315 Island Road, South Thomaston, Maine; 207-593-1382; mcloonslobster.com
Konafa Naama at Sayad Mediterranean Kitchen
Houston
You may try to skip dessert at Sayad, but your servers will insist on it. Let them. The konafa, a signature here, arrives with a molten layer of cheese under a sticky-sweet layer of golden, nutty semolina. The craft is evident, the konafa gone in a few bites. ($8.99 for one piece) PRIYA KRISHNA
2712 Eldridge Parkway, Houston; 281-293-9090; sayadkitchen.com
Guava Tart at Sol Bakery
San Francisco
Taking a bite into any one of Marisa Williams’s guava tarts is a reminder that the makeup of a dessert’s textures can mesmerize: Finger limes, lying supine over smooth guava cream, pop delightfully with each bite, of which there are many. This palm-size tart forces time to slow down, though you’ll hope it will last forever. Slightly sour notes hit the back of your throat, preventing the dessert from ever becoming overly sweet. Though there are only a couple of opportunities left this year to visit the pop-up at Neighbor Bakehouse, the tarts will continue at her forthcoming permanent location, opening in February. ($11) ELEANORE PARK
2343 Third Street, Unit 100, San Francisco; no phone; instagram.com/sol___bakery
Apple Entremet at Votum
Hood River, Ore.
The chef Sarah Doyle is a one-woman show when it comes to the kitchen at Votum. (Her partner, Nathan Ricks, runs the dining room.) And she excels at savory and pastry dishes alike. In June, Ms. Doyle brought out a layered dish of apple cake with a topped with late-harvest riesling mousse. But the supporting player that stole the show was rhubarb, which appeared in two forms. Grown at altitude nearby, it had an especially deep red hue and abiding sweetness as an accompanying sorbet and candied shards that looked like crimson-stained glass. Sparing dollops of white chocolate cremeux were a unifying grace note. (Part of a $159 tasting menu) BRIAN GALLAGHER
210 Second Street, Hood River, Ore.; 541-645 3465; votumrestaurant.com
Blueberry Tart at Gift Horse
Providence, R.I.
Is it cruel for me to tell you, as winter looms, about a dessert so thoroughly beholden to summer? I stopped by Gift Horse in August and found this little tart, no bigger than the circle you make touching thumbs and index fingers. Inside: caramelized white chocolate, rich and mellow as butterscotch. And on top, brimming over, blueberries, wildly fresh, fat and taut, testament to the season, and a parade’s worth of confetti-ed L’Amuse Gouda, with its own smack of butterscotch tempered by salt. ($14) LIGAYA MISHAN
272 Westminster Street, Providence, R.I.; 401-383-3813; gifthorsepvd.com
Coconut Turnover at Kabawa
New York City
This nine-inch loaf, big enough for two, is the chef Paul Carmichael’s brilliant meld of two childhood loves: the coconut turnovers of his home island, Barbados, generous buns of enriched dough hiding caches of spiced coconut; and the oozy-sweet joys of Cinnabon. It’s warm, golden and pillowy, with opulent squiggles of coconut cream cheese frosting on top, as thick as braids on a dress uniform. You won’t finish it, but no matter: The leftovers make the happiest breakfast. (Part of a $145 prix-fixe menu) LIGAYA MISHAN
8 Extra Place, New York City; 646-790-8747; kabawa.com
Watermelon Icebox at Bayonet
Birmingham, Ala.
There are as many variations of the Southern icebox cake as there are grandmothers, none of whom have ever seen anything like the interpretation of frozen fruit, cream and cookies on offer during the summer at Bayonet. This nod to the icebox cake is a rectangle of impossibly smooth watermelon semifreddo. It’s crowned with a tumble of diced fruit and crystals of watermelon granita. A fluffy quenelle of frozen crème fraîche joins the party, all of which is assembled atop a pool of sweet, icy watermelon broth dotted with olive oil. It’s a long, long way from the Cool Whip and graham cracker concoctions sitting in many Southern freezers, but a love note nonetheless. ($12) KIM SEVERSON
2015 Second Avenue North, Birmingham, Ala.; 205-829-1899; bayonetbham.com
Fraise at Jeune et Jolie
Carlsbad, Calif.
If you can’t snag a reservation here for the divine coastal California-infused French menu, experiencing the fraise de bois à la carte at the bar makes the trip worth it. The constellation of elements on the dish — slick strawberry and pink peppercorn sorbet, layers of flaky inverse puff pastry and Mara de Bois strawberries — all hold their own. But with the puck of mascarpone sitting discreetly beneath a berry tuile, the dessert evolves, by some sorcery, into what every cheesecake dreams of being. ($18 à la carte) ELEANORE PARK
2659 State Street, Suite 102, Carlsbad, Calif.; 760-637-5266; jeune-jolie.com
Ketan Hitam at Yeni’s Fusion
Austin, Texas
Whichever kind of rice pudding the chef Yeni Rosdiyani is serving at her Indonesian food truck, you want it. This barely sweet version, lush with coconut milk, aromatic with pandan and as soothing as warm porridge, is the gentlest way to end a meal. ($7.50) PRIYA KRISHNA
8315 Burnet Road, Austin, Texas; 512-229-5178; yenisfusion.com
Cherry Pie at the Cherry Hut
Beulah, Mich.
This slice manifests all your fantasies of what an ideal cherry pie should be. The Cherry Hut has been serving pies in Northern Michigan since 1922, and its entry to the canon — a full quarter of pie served warm — wallops you on several fronts: flavor, technical skill and nostalgia. The cherries are sour, as they must be. The filling is overly generous. And the paper-thin lard crust on top and bottom gives just enough fat and salt to counter the tart sweetness of those impeccable ruby-red fruits. ($4.95, $6.75 à la mode) SARA BONISTEEL
211 North Michigan Avenue, Beulah, Mich., open seasonally May through October; 231-882-4431; cherryhut.com
Campfire Pie at Charlie’s Napa Valley
St. Helena, Calif.
The campfire pie at Charlie’s Napa Valley nods to the restaurant’s old space, Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen, and its notable chef, Cindy Pawlcyn. This version doesn’t stray too far from the original, rustic pie with an Oreo crust and mound of Marshmallow Fluff, though its current iteration presents as much sleeker. Smooth-on-smooth layers of ganache, a mix of dark, milk and Caramélia chocolates and toasted meringue bleed into each other like Rothko edges, ending an array of savory courses on the simplest but most memorable note of the whole meal. ($12) ELEANORE PARK
1327 Railroad Avenue, St. Helena, Calif.; 707-804-3099; charliesnv.com