Brooklyn Bites: The borough’s 9 best doughnut shops 

By Scott Lynch

Doughnuts are delicious any day of the year, but there’s something about autumn that feels particularly … doughnutty. Maybe it’s that nip in the air, and how well a fluffy (or cakey!) sweet treat goes with a nice cup of hot coffee. Or perhaps I’m tapping into deeply embedded happy memories of munching on apple cider doughnuts at upstate orchards, or roadside stands in Vermont, or, more recently, at the Greenmarket in Grand Army Plaza.

Whatever. Doughnuts are awesome. Like having dessert for breakfast. Or for brunch. Or for an afternoon snack. Brooklyn knows this, and the borough has long been home to not only the best doughnuts in the city, but also possibly the best doughnuts in the world. And in the case of our number one pick Peter Pan, in the entire multiverse? After all, Spider-Man hung out there.

9. Moe’s Doughs
126 Nassau Avenue, between Eckford Street and McGuinness Boulevard, Greenpoint 

Samoa and pistachio, from Moe’s Dough, $1.50 each (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Opened about five blocks away from Peter Pan, by former Peter Pan baker Mohamed Saleh, the arrival of Moe’s Doughs in Greenpoint in 2014 seemed to signal the start of an all-out donut turf war. And then we quickly learned that Moe’s was almost as good as Peter Pan, and that there were more than enough donut fiends in North Brooklyn to support both places. Best of both worlds! Moe’s has plenty of classics, but Saleh also isn’t afraid to get a little wild, with treats like the cookie-inspired Samoa doughnuts, and a decadent salted caramel cheesecake creation.

8. Nostrand Doughnut Shop
1449 Nostrand Avenue, between Martense Street and Church Avenue, East Flatbush  

Chocolate dipped and coconut, from Nostrand Doughnut Shop, $1 each (Photo by Scott Lynch)

If only every neighborhood in Brooklyn had an old school breakfast-counter doughnut shop as good as this one. Located on a bustling corner in Flatbush, Nostrand Donuts serves a solid array of first-rate fried pastries, all of which are dense, sugary and satisfying. Toasted coconut, chocolate marble (heavily glazed), and chocolate frosted are my favorites, but get a mixed dozen some Saturday morning to bring home to your crew. You’ll be a hero.

7. Dun-Well in Williamsburg 
222 Montrose Street, just west of Bushwick Avenue, Williamsburg

Assorted vegan doughnuts, from Dun-Well, $1.50 to $2.75 each (Photo by Scott Lynch)

More sweet vegan delights can be had at this Montrose Avenue shop, located right across from L, which has been serving terrific doughnuts in a funky, DIY-vibing setting (dig those tree-trunk plates!) since 2011. The flavors change all the time and tend toward the inventive, with recent offerings including the likes of grilled peach and basil, maple bourbon brownie batter, and pumpkin spice latte with espresso cream filling. If you know anyone who still believes that vegan food is boring, this is the spot to prove them wrong once and for all.

6. Cloudy Donut
14 Columbia Place, just south of Joralemon Street, Brooklyn Heights   

Raspberry rosé, brown butter chocolate chip, Cookie Monster, pistachio, brown butter white chocolate macadamia, from Cloudy Donut, $4 each (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Employing a strategy that shop operator Zewiditu Jewel called “reverse gentrification,” this Black-owned, all-vegan Baltimore import opened toward the end of 2022 on one of those impossibly pretty blocks in Brooklyn Heights, and the neighbors have been eating it up ever since. Cloudy features a rotating selection of some 40 different varieties — the crème brulée and the passion fruit are personal favorites — and they are puffy and light, colorful and creative, sugary sweet and a lot of fun to eat.

5. Little Egg
657 Washington Avenue, between Bergen Street and St. Marks Avenue, Prospect Heights 

Cardamom glazed cruller with plum drizzle, from Little Egg, $7 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

True, Little Egg isn’t a doughnut shop, but not only does Evan Hanczor’s excellent cafe on Washington Avenue (a reboot of his long-running Williamsburg cafe, called simply Egg) serve a stellar breakfast and/or brunch, it also stars pastry chef Tanya Bush’s almost obscenely juicy crullers. The flavor of the day changes often — pictured is one with a cardamom glaze and plum drizzle — but it always makes me happy.

4. Win Son Bakery
164 Graham Avenue at the corner of Montrose Avenue, Williamsburg 

Mochi donut, from Win Son Bakery, $5 (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Trigg Brown, Josh Ku, and pastry chef Danielle Spencer had an instant hit on their hands when they opened this Taiwanese-American pastry shop/all-day cafe/casual dinner spot in the summer of 2019, and rightly so. Win Son Bakery is one of my absolute favorite places to eat literally any meal of the day or night. But we’re here to talk specifically about Spence’s mochi doughnuts, which are phenomenal: they’re sweet, chewy, and unlike any other in the borough. The fermented red rice ones are pretty rad too.

3. Shaikh’s Place
1503 Avenue U, between East 15th and East 16th Streets, Sheepshead Bay   

Strawberry dip and chocolate glazed, from Shaikh’s, $1 each (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Sometimes we wax romantic about old-school local businesses because we love having them in our neighborhood, even if, let’s face it, the food at some of these spots is pretty sub-par. That’s not the case with Shaikh’s Place, hard by the Avenue U station, a glorious 24-hour self-proclaimed “Donut Shoppe” that’s been around for more 60 years (the current owner, Shaikh Kalam, bought the place in 1993 and by all accounts improved the quality of doughnuts enormously). Here they serve flat-out delicious, and surprisingly light, versions of the classics. Really: these are fantastic. And when I was there recently I was chatting with a long-time regular who ordered two doughnuts, and two coffees, and his bill was $4. That is some beautiful vintage shit my friends.

2. Fan-Fan Donuts
448 Lafayette Avenue, at the corner of Franklin Avenue, Bed-Stuy

Assorted flavors, from Fan-Fan, $4 to $5 each (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Among other things, Fany Gerson’s superb Fan-Fan Donuts represents the best kind of happy ending. After leaving Dough, the company she founded in 2010, and shuttering her original shop in Bed-Stuy, Gerson re-emerged in the fall of 2020 in the exact same place with a whole new doughnut concept that, turns out, is even better than Dough. What a time to be alive! Everything is amazing here so order with impunity, though I can never resist the cafe-con-leche “white coffee” doughnut, nor the tangy mango lassi one, nor any of the sticky buns, nor anything Gerson makes with guava in it.

1. Peter Pan Donut and Pastry Shop
727 Manhattan Avenue between Meserole and Norman Avenues, Greenpoint

Red velvet and creme filled, from Peter Pan, $1.75 each (Photo by Scott Lynch)

Peter Pan has been holding it down in the heart of Manhattan Avenue since the 1950s — the current proprietors, Donna and Christos Siafakas, took over in 1993 — and, rather than coasting on nostalgia and/or multiple cultural shoutouts, amazingly it kind of keeps getting better. Go when the case is full and the menu is vast, from classics like an old fashioned glazed (remarkably good) to the ever-changing array of contemporary creations like marshmallow-filled ‘s’mores doughnut. This is one of NYC’s finest institutions, to be protected at all costs.