Evanston residents are no stranger to the call of sweet treat cravings, and the town always has an answer. A new option dropped in January as Crave Cookies opened their doors on Church Street. The addition of another cookie chain got me wondering — who’s baking up the best cookie in Evanston?
I grabbed two friends and hit seven of the city’s best coffee shops, bakeries and late night sweet shops to put them to the test.
Hi, can I get a chocolate chip cookie?
EMPLOYEE: Just one?
Yes please.
I roped in Weinberg second-year Sandy Catalan and Medill second-year Supriya Akella. Together, we drafted a point system that balanced texture, presentation, chocolate quality, size-to-cost ratio and overall satisfaction.
First, we headed north. After a short Metra trip up to Central Street, we stopped inside Poplar Pastries, DeSalvo’s Pizza, Backlot Coffee, and Leonidas Chocolate Cafe.
Right around the corner from the station was Poplar Pastries, where we tried out their $4 chocolate chip cookie. Though the cookie was large, we found it still left a lot to be desired.
AKELLA: I feel like the main good thing about it is it’s really big. But it’s really thin. You don’t really get to taste the flavor of the cookie dough because it’s all been cooked off, you know, it’s so thin and crispy.
Poplar’s shortage of sweetness brought it to number 6 on our ranking. Yet, a notable standout up north was Backlot Coffee. Its large chocolate chunk cookie comes in at $3.25 — one of the best deals of all the cookies.
AKELLA: The chocolate is really good.
PAYNE: The edge has a nice crunch.
AKELLA: It’s a little bit of a darker chocolate, but it’s still fine because the cookie dough is really like a good level of sweetness.
PAYNE: This one’s not overly sweet either.
AKELLA: It gets the job done. It’ll probably fill you up a little bit.
With lots of chocolate but less overall flavor, it came in at number 4 on our ranking. Next we stopped by DeSalvo’s Pizza, whose brown butter chocolate chip cookie cost $3.75.
AKELLA: You can kind of taste the brown butter, but not really. If that’s what you want you might be a little disappointed. The dough itself doesn’t really have a strong flavor, it doesn’t taste like cookie dough.
PAYNE: I think just like the dough is really odd and savory and then the chocolate has the little bitterness of dark chocolate, so having them together is not an exciting experience.
AKELLA: It’s like not sweet enough.
With good chocolate but a little too much saltiness, DeSalvo’s ended up at the bottom of our ranking.
Our favorite of these shops came as a surprise. After getting unlucky at Hewn, an independent Evanston bakery,
AKELLA: Do you have the chocolate chip cookie?
EMPLOYEE: We are sold out.
We stopped in to Leonidas Chocolate Cafe. The chain has three locations in Illinois specializing in Belgian chocolate and French pastries. It offers a Belgian Grand Chocolate Chip Cookie for $4.95. This cookie was definitely the most eye-catching of the lineup.
CATALAN: Supriya’s really excited.
AKELLA: It’s massive.
PAYNE: There’s two different types of chocolate, it’s thick.
The cookie was huge, chewy, and perfectly chocolatey — a clear standout. Ultimately, we gave it second place in our ranking.
We headed back to downtown Evanston, where we tried Bennison’s Bakery, Insomnia Cookies and the new Crave Cookies.
Insomnia is a classic student go-to — it’s close by and open late. It’s also a cheap option: The chocolate chunk cookie came in at only $2.99. Still, it was noticeably smaller than the rest of the lineup.
PAYNE: The outside is really crunchy. I think it cooled down a little bit, it’s not as warm as normal. But the chocolate is still really melty.
The cookie was ready fast and warm, but it didn’t totally blow us away. The late-night cookie chain just barely beat out Backlot for the number 3 spot on our list.
Bennison’s Bakery is another local favorite for their variety of fresh baked goods. We tried their large chocolate chip cookie for $3.65 — another great deal.
AKELLA: It’s definitely a very spread out cookie, it’s similar to Poplar in that way.
PAYNE: That’s true. Very thin, very crunchy.
AKELLA: I would say the flavor of the chocolate is not that strong.
PAYNE: No, the flavors in general aren’t that strong.
We found that Bennison’s was missing that special sweetness and softness to take it over the top, bringing the cookie into 5th place.
We ended our tour at Crave Cookies. Their $4.99 chocolate chip cookie is the largest on our list, and it also made the biggest impression.
Beating Leonidas by just one point, Crave took home the number one spot on our list with its great balance of sweetness, warmth, and chocolate.
So if you’ve been looking for a sign to head over to Crave and try out one of its massive cookies, here it is. But if you want to stick to your local favorite, we don’t blame you. There’s sweet treat gems all around Evanston that are definitely worth taking a bite out of.
For WNUR News, I’m Olivia Payne.