Review: Cookshop, NYC

It's always difficult for me to decide where to eat, especially for brunch. It is my favorite meal of the week after all. I love the idea of eating breakfast at noon and lingering at a table for 2-3 hours drinking coffee and mimosas at the same time. Usually if I commit to brunch, that's all I'm doing that day. And I especially like brunch in NYC. I might argue it's what they do best.

Luckily last weekend, my girlfriend narrowed it down for me with four suggestions. We choose Cookshop because of the variety on their menu and location. I couldn't resist descriptions like, "Skillet Baked 'Dutch Baby' Pancake," and words like "caramelized onions" in the same dish as "buttermilk biscuit" and "bacon." I just couldn't.

The atmosphere was typical for the neighborhood {Chelsea} - groups of young people, and new families {read: babies, but not one of them cried! amazing}. I don't remember if music was playing but the sun softly lit the space as the wait staff bustled around us, and were just the right amount of attentive.

We started with the Cookshop Breakfast Pastries. I highly recommend these and if I was a naughty girl I would have ordered a second plate just to eat for myself. I've never had sweet potato bread before and I very much liked it! Sweet, moist, and cake-y, not unlike banana dense, flaky chocolate chip scone melted in my mouth. Finally, the cranberry apple muffin with maple butter, let's just say I ate more than my portion. I would have stabbed someone with my fork to eat more of that crumbly topping and warm fluffy cake {muffins are breakfast cake. It's true. Get over it.}

Each of us had a hard time choosing a main course and I ended up with the Cookshop Scramble. It had a unique flavor that I kept taking more bites of just to investigate. I liked the biscuit and eggs together but it was a bit rich for me to eat more than a few bites of.

Maybe next time I'll get down with my badself and have a full serving of the breakfast pastries and skip the eggs...

Tip for eating brunch in NYC: like most of your other meals in the city, you will need to make a reservation.