Rainbow cookies are wonderful because this layered Italian American dessert is a sweet checklist of everything good — in a vibrant, chocolatey casing. They’re moist but not soggy or crumbly and, more important, they’re vibrant— if they’re well-made.
Typically, rainbow cookies are layers of colored almond paste-based cake — usually red, green, and white or cream, mimicking the Italian flag. The layers are then slathered with raspberry or apricot jam, and it’s finished with thin chocolate.
Grown-ups and children adore rainbow cookies: Rainbow is my toddler niece’s favorite color. And for my wedding favors-slash-seating placards, we stuck names and numbers onto rainbow cookies sourced from a Brooklyn Italian bakery.
New York is awash with excellent classic rainbow cookie options. See: Circo’s Pastry Shop in Bushwick, Il Fornaio Bakery in Astoria, and William Greenberg Desserts in Manhattan. This season, a few local restaurants and bakeries are exploring the genre by reimagining other forms of the rainbow cookie, from cakes to stuffed croissants to baked Alaska.
JR & Son
575 Lorimer Street, at Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg
Rainbow cookie layer cake, $15
Chef Patricia Vega first encountered the wonders of rainbow cookies when she moved to New York 20 years ago and worked at her neighbor’s Italian deli on Long Island, which, of course, served the tricolor sweet. “I’m like, ‘What is this?’” she tells me. “I used to eat them every single day. So every time that I worked in an Italian restaurant, I always had rainbow cookies, but they were super-traditional.”
For JR & Son, the revamped Italian American restaurant in Brooklyn, she tagged pastry chef Amanda Perdomo (who has since left for New Orleans) to help develop the sweets. Perdomo told Vega: “Mine is going to be a little different because your menu, even though it’s Italian, is a little different.” Vega responded, “I trust you.”
The result is an Italian rainbow cookie layer cake, served by the slice, that happens to be vegan. The cake is made with coconut sponge, along with raspberry jam and dark chocolate ganache. Vega tells me that people even order it to go.
Favorite classic rainbow cookie destination: “To be 100 percent honest, I haven’t been lately to a deli where I’m like, ‘This is it.’ If I’m going to eat one, I’m going to eat mine.”
Video: Tucci
Tucci
643 Broadway, at Bleecker Street, Noho. Rainbow cookie baked Alaska, $22
The family behind iconic NYC restaurant Delmonico’s opened this Italian restaurant in 2024. And because Delmonico’s was the birthplace of the baked Alaska, executive chef Adam Plitt wanted to create an Italian homage to the restaurant’s roots, landing on the rainbow cookie baked Alaska.
The cake sponge with layers of chocolate ganache and raspberry jam is topped with raspberry sorbet and vanilla gelato covered in meringue.
Favorite classic rainbow cookie destination: “Tucci’s.”
Tall Poppy
156 W. 20th Street, near Seventh Avenue, Chelsea. Rainbow cookie croissant, $10
Co-owner and Australian Nina McGrath’s bakery is known for croissants, so it makes sense the team is stuffing the laminated pastry with rainbow cookies. (h/t Mike Chau and also bear with us: this is a special available only in August, so you’ve got a couple of days to get it, sorry, sorry.)
McGrath writes to me that the bakery’s sous chef, Greer Shanley, recently taught herself how to make rainbow cookies for a friend’s birthday. That made McGrath wonder about what they could do with her new skill. “Baking in a shop that really only sells croissants, you start to wire your brain to figure out how to turn anything into a croissant,” she writes. “Thus, the rainbow cookie croissant was born. It’s a gift that keeps on giving.”
They took Tall Poppy’s twice-baked almond croissant, added raspberry jam, and topped the exterior with chocolate icing and rainbow sprinkles “because they’re so dang cute,” she writes.
Favorite classic rainbow cookie destination: “In Shrewsbury, New Jersey, at La Rosa’s. They’ve been perfecting that recipe for 100 years. I think that memories and food are two sides of the same coin.”
Barano
26 Broadway, near Kent Avenue, Williamsburg. Rainbow cookie sundae, $20
Chef, partner, and owner Albert DiMeglio grew up surrounded by rainbow cookies. “We didn’t have a function without them,” he tells me. “Those were the ones I used to hoard and put to the side and eat them all. It’s always been my favorite cookie.”
He had introduced his rainbow cookie at Little Italy pizza restaurant Rubirosa (he’s a co-founder; the classic version’s still on that menu), and when he opened his now-10-year-old modern Italian restaurant, he thought about marrying the cookies with ice cream for something different. That led to the rainbow cookie sundae: vanilla gelato, rainbow cookies, raspberries marinated in rum, and topped with bruleed meringue. “It was everything about a rainbow cookie, but that ice cream and meringue torched is such a phenomenal flavor together.”
DiMeglio notes people come just for the sundae, but also, unfortunately, Barano is closing on Sunday, August 30.
Favorite classic rainbow cookie destination: “Fortunato, hands down. What I like about Fortunato is that it’s so moist. A lot of people get that texture wrong; it’s either too cakey or too pasty. And theirs is just soft — it has all the structure you need while being soft with so much flavor.”
Ciao, Gloria
550 Vanderbilt Avenue, near Pacific Street, Prospect Heights. Jumbo-sized tricolore bar, $6
“I’m Italian; it’s my favorite cookie on a tray,” Ciao owner Renato Poliafito tells me.
When he co-wrote his first book in 2008, Baked, inspired by his bakery of the same name, he included a tricolore cookie (aka rainbow cookie) recipe that played with orange flavor.
After leaving Baked and opening Ciao, he experimented with Neapolitan and spumoni combinations, but landed on the classic. “It’s a cake, it’s a cookie, it’s a bar. It falls under every category, and people love it.”
But what makes Ciao’s different is that it’s jumbo-sized. “It’s not like the slivers you get,” he says. “Do you ever see someone just eat one of those? You eat like three or four, so why not just cut to the chase?”
The same cookie is served at his Italian restaurant Pasta Night across the street.
Favorite classic rainbow cookie destination: Vinny Cakes. “He’s based out of Staten Island. He’s the sweetest guy, and he does all sorts of different flavors depending on the season, like pumpkin spice or pistachio. They’re just delicious, and they’re really cute.”
Intel
For Jersey Shore-bound types, Terroir Tribeca’s Paul Grieco is bringing Summer of Riesling to James Beard-recognized Judy & Harry’s in Asbury Park on Sunday, August 30. The home of more than 90 wines by the glass will take that sensibility to the wine list takeover with six Rieslings by the glass and Riesling-inspired cocktails, too. Also on tap: Local tattoo artist Karissa Anne of Fast Time Tattoos will offer a collection of wine-inspired ink options. Reservations for Judy’s, the Jewish-leaning Italian restaurant, are available — for a dinner of items like oysters, latkes, zucca pasta, and New Jersey’s Belmont Tavern-inspired chicken. The bar is open for Riesling revelry, too.
Turkish restaurant Ankara has closed on the Lower East Side. The restaurant opened in 2023, former Eater NY critic Robert Sietsema reported, from Ramazan Turgut, who used to own Bereket on Houston and Orchard streets for nearly 20 years until a condo project forced him to close in 2014. The new place was a third location for a small group of Turkish restaurants based in Brooklyn.
Mimi Cheng’s will wrap up 12 years in the East Village on September 11. And while it’s the last location in the city, the dumplings are sold across the country in Whole Foods.
JR and Sons for the win!
I am here for it. Maybe not the croissant version, but still here.