Introduction
In the last seven years of life in NYC, we have encountered wave after wave of Asia-influenced dessert trends. We have popped our fair share of bubble waffle ice cream creations, spliced layers of creamy mille crepe cakes, been engulfed in the Japanese-style cream puffs and Korean cream doughnuts explosion, counted one-thousand-and-one-ways to use bubble tea, nibbled the weird-sometimes-wonderful-sometimes-not croffle or souffle pancake or mochi doughnut hybrid dessert, and applauded the city’s growing love affair with pandan. Today, we round-up the best spots where you can actually sit down enjoy all of these desserts with friends and loved ones, with a pot of tea or a crazy-coloured drink. Say hello to the ultimate and most comprehensive guide to NYC’s best Asian dessert cafes spots, focusing on Manhattan!
And don’t forget to check out our other best Asian desserts in NYC guides:
- Guide to the best Chinatown bakeries in NYC here;
- Guide to the best Asian desserts in Long Island City and Flushing here;
- Guide to the best Asian street food desserts (such as kuih, taiyaki, bungeoppang etc) here;
- Full list of all our favourite Asian desserts can be found here.
As with all our round-up reviews, we keep updating, so do bookmark this page!
*Updated January 2025.
Best for group dessert outings
- Dessert destination: Spot Dessert Bar, East Village.
- Past dessert review: Here, here.
- Best for: Pan-Asian desserts. Spot was one of the very first dessert spots we visited in NYC, and still remains one of our favourite. We particularly love Spot’s Tiramisu Flower Pot, but seriously, don’t sleep on any of the other desserts. We haven’t had a dessert that we didn’t like from here. 🙂
- Dessert destination: Grace Street, Koreatown, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here, here, and here.
- Best for: Ultra-creamy shaved ice. We hate crowded places, but Grace Street is one of the few places that we will make an exception for. Avoid Friday nights, and bring a group to try all the bingsu flavours. If that’s not enough sugar for you, order the Bubble Tea French Toast.
- Dessert destination: Sweet Moment, Chinatown, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here, here.
- Best for: Semi-creamy shaved ice. For the ultimate weekend game plan, come here with a big group of friends, monopolize one of the big communal wooden tables, and then order all of the colourful shaved ice on the menu. They come in a variety of sizes depending on your level of gluttony. 😛
- Dessert destination: Heuk Hwa Dang, Koreatown.
- Past dessert review: Here.
- Best for: Medium-texture shaved ice. If you can’t get into Grace Street, trot over to HHD and you might be able to find a seat at this spacious dual-level dessert spot. The shaved ice is less creamy, larger, and with generous plops of toppings.
- Dessert destination: Sweets Laboratory, Koreatown, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here.
- Best for: Light shaved ice. If the Little One is all about eating crystals, and Sweet Moment and Grace is about heavier cream shaved ice, Sweets Laboratory strikes a balance in the middle. It’s like soft snow. The Earl Grey is our favourite, but the mango and matcha are close seconds.
- Dessert destination: Nana’s Green Tea, Koreatown.
- Past dessert review: To be published soon.
- Best for: Modern Japanese parfaits. Suppose you want a little bit of ice cream, but also with toppings, but not too sweet? Head to Nana’s – for crowd-pleasing green tea or hojicha Japanese-style parfaits. Layers of mochi, wagashi, red bean, and fluffy cream spooned into a vertiginous tower perfect for sharing.
Best for casual dessert dates in squishy spots
- Dessert destination: Bibble & Sip, Midtown Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here, here, here, here, here.
- Best for: Giant cream puffs and cartoon cakes. B&S was one of the early Asian-accented dessert cafes we first frequented some years ago. It’s still tiny with just a handful of seats, and there are still long lines especially during the weekends. Don’t miss the cream puffs and Lunar New Year specials.
- Dessert destination: Butterdose, East Village, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here.
- Best for: Pan-Asian cream puffs. The petite cream puffs from Butterdose can be distinguished from other cream puff purveyors by being injected with flavours such as yuzu, matcha, sakura, and lychee.
- Dessert destination: Little One, Lower East Side, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here, here.
- Best for: Very light Japanese shaved ice. The Little One is oh-so-tiny, both in terms of sitting space and the size of its dessert offerings. But its shaved ice is so crystalline, and utterfly perfect for NYC’s humid summer weather.
- Dessert destination: Bao Tea House, Chinatown, Manhattan (formerly in Greenwich Village).
- Past dessert review: Here.
- Best for: Sweet baked baos. Nothing beats a platter of char siewo bao (or hot pot or K-BBQ) in the middle of winter. But for when you are craving something a little sweeter, we love Bao Tea House’s black sesame and coconut custard bun. There are five other sweet bao buns on offer too.
- Dessert destination: Spongies, Chinatown, Manhttan.
- Past dessert review: Here, here.
- Best for: Chinese sponge cake. Located almost across the street from the famed Kam Hing, Spongies flies under the radar. For when the line at Kam Hing is too crazy, you can more easily score a seat and a soft sponge cake from Spongies.
- Dessert destination: An Jelly, East Village, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here.
- Best for: Vietnamese jelly desserts. Come here for colourful drinks inspired by travels in Vietnam, and that viral bouncy jelly pudding dessert.
- Dessert destination: La Mira Gelateria, Koreatown, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here.
- Best for: The cutest ice cream. I love ice cream, but I love it even more when it is injected with Asian-esque flavours such as peach oolong and transformed into a cute little animal face! 😀
- Dessert destination: Kabisera, East Village, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here.
- Best for: Filipino desserts. We first visited Kabisera for a coffee stop, but fell in love instead with its dessert selection of chewy cassava cake, sticky bingka, and the hopia biscuit filled with ube.
- Dessert destination: Takahachi, Tribeca, Manhattan
- Best for: Japanese bakery treats. One of the longest-standing dessert spots on this list, Takahachi still flies under the radar to this day. We always pop by after a manicure or pedicure at our favourite nail salon, JinSoon, in Tribeca, for Takahachi’s matcha red bean crepe roll or a matcha mochi brioche bun.
- Dessert destination: 78 Degrees Cafe, East Village Manhattan.
- Best for: Light Japanese-style mousse cake. Tucked away in the East Village, 78 Degrees runs under the radar a bit. But come here for its adorable bear-shaped mousse cake (taro ube flavour) or a baby seal pudding (coconut flavour). Both have a bouncy jelly-like texture.
- Dessert destination: Cafe 2 by 2, Union Square, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: To be published soon.
- Best for: Asian style tiramisu. Tiramisu is not a dessert that we typically crave — it’s usually too creamy, too heavy, too rich or too sweet. But, what if one switches the cream for something lighter, and injects lighter flavours such as oolong, peach, lychee, taro, sesame, green tea? Sign us up!
Best for elegant dessert dates with more space
- Dessert destination: Chikalicious, East Village, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here.
- Best for: Light Japanese-accented dessert tasting. If you enjoy subtle, barely sweet desserts, Chikalicious was one of our very first NYC dessert tasting experiences, and it is still around today! And the price remains unbeatable, at around $20pp for 3-courses.
- Dessert destination: Cha-An Teahouse, East Village, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here, here, here, here.
- Best for: Traditional Japanese desserts. Similar to Chikalicious, Cha-An was one of the first NYC dessert spots we visited. If you can avoid the weekend lines, there’s nothing quite like delicately nibbling on Cha-An’s sakura cookies and mochi-centric desserts in a beautifully-imagined old-fashioned Japanese tea house. And if you don’t manage to get a coveted table, don’t miss the skewered mochi and Japanese matcha sakura hojicha softserve from downstairs (see here and here).
- Dessert destination: Prince Tea House, East Village, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here, here, here.
- Best for: Mille crepe cakes – of which we love the mango and bubble tea flavours the best, but also consider the simple but scrumptious high tea.
- Dessert destination: Harbs, Chelsea and Soho, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here.
- Best for: Mille crepe cakes and berry cakes. Harbs’ cakes are creamier, a little less sweet, a little more refined than Prince Tea House’s.
- Dessert destination: Sarisa Cafe, Midtown Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here.
- Best for: Modern Thai desserts high tea and cakes. Instead of dry scones or limp sandwiches, Sarisa offers a very unique interpretation of high tea, as a stunning tower of Thai desserts shaped as flowers and fruit. Although the flavour profile of the nibbles tend to blend and blur together after a while, it’s still a beautiful high tea experience in NYC. Some of the desserts are available a la carte as well.
- Dessert destination: Duo Cafe, East Village, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here.
- Best for: Modern Chinese high tea and cakes. NYC is obsessed with croissants, Japanese desserts, and increasingly Korean desserts. Less seen in NYC are modern Chinese desserts, and aside from the squishy Ando Patisserie (featured earlier above), don’t miss Duo Cafe. The afternoon tea set is elegantly presented in a compartmentalized teak tray, accompanied with a collection of rare Chinese desserts. It’s a very serene dessert spot.
- Dessert destination: Patisserie Fouet, Gramercy, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here, here, here.
- Best for: Modern Japanese-French desserts. Patisserie Fouet is a little squashy, but we recommend the bar seating. Score a seat there and order the highly affordable dessert tasting menu that ends with a wonderful hojicha or matcha souffle. An alternative is to order the petite cakes or giant escargot pastry a la carte.
- Dessert destination: AnnTremet, West Village, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here and here.
- Best for: Modern Asian-French mousse cakes. AnnTremet’s small seating area is somewhat of a blank canvas to its wide selection of iridiscent mirror glazed mousse cakes infused with flavours such as lychee, chrysanthemum, black sesame, yuzu, ube. The mousse texture is exceedingly light. Ann Tremet also offers the best value high tea in NYC. Changing every season, it warrants repeat visits.
- Dessert destination: Lysee, Gramercy, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here, here.
- Best for: Modern Korean-French mousse cakes. A literal hot mess when it first opened, Lysee is a spot that has slowly grown on us. Unquestionably photogenic, the desserts here feature a subtle Korean profile, intermarried with sometimes dominating French flavours. Look out for special dessert tasting events that take place in a casually elegant space that has no equivalent yet in NYC.
- Dessert destination: Banh by Lauren, Lower East Side, Manhattan.
- Past dessert review: Here.
- Best for: Modern Vietnamese sweet bites. BBL’s cakes — whether in chiffon cloud form or squishy honeycomb form — possess an unabashedly pandan heart. The patisserie-cafe keeps things simple, small and altogether, brilliantly executed.
Dessert Correspondents 