Snickerdoodle
This sustainably minded café that serves vegetarian, gluten-free, and dairy-free options bakes a wonderfully spicy snickerdoodle that they also make in pancake form.
12640 Sabre Springs Parkway, Poway
Blackstrap Betty
It’s fall in dessert form (and we’re not talking about pumpkin spice lattes). The Betty is a molasses-based cookie with apricot, ginger, and cinnamon.
4686 30th Street, Normal Heights
California Killer
With a brand name like that, you’d better be amazing. Fortunately, their lineup lives up to the hype, especially this staple flavor with chunks of white and dark chocolate, walnuts, and pecans.
650 University Avenue, Hillcrest
Birthday Cake
The colorful, sprinkle-studded confection is perfect for your special day, but we happen to like it any day. It has vanilla chips and a batter-like consistency.
Locations in Carlsbad and Point Loma
Ginger Chew
It’s the La Jolla bakery’s signature cookie—a soft number made with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and clove and cooked for exactly nine minutes. So good they got the spotlight on Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship.
7660 Fay Avenue, La Jolla
Almond Coconut Chocolate Chip
“Cookies so good, you’ll hide them from the ones you love.” That’s a tagline we can get behind, and it rings true at this Imperial Beach institution.
1002 Palm Avenue, Imperial Beach
Chocolate Chip Pecan
Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, and every bite gives you a little bit of both chocolate and nuts at this hip café in Little Italy’s Piazza della Famiglia.
555 West Date Street, Little Italy
Chocolate Chip
Enter through a charming cottage into a café making some of the best cookies in town. Some are more creative, like the Monte Carlo—a jam sandwiched between two cookies—but here, we go classic.
16905 Avenida de Acacias, Rancho Santa Fe
Smart Cookies
