New York summer has officially entered its “eat dessert before dinner” era.
Starting today, cult-favorite cookie giant Levain Bakery is teaming up with viral scoop shop Caffè Panna on a new lineup of over-the-top frozen treats that feel engineered specifically for twilight walks through the Upper West Side. The collaboration brings together two of the city’s most obsessively loved dessert brands: Levain, home of the famously softball-sized gooey cookies, and Caffè Panna, the Italian-inspired ice cream shop that we recently named the best ice cream spot in NYC.
The new seasonal menu features warm Cookies à la Mode, mini ice cream sandwiches and affogatos made with Caffè Panna ice cream, which will be on offer all summer long.
The biggest headline here is probably the new ice cream sandwiches, which take Levain’s signature thick cookies and shrink them down into more manageable handheld versions stuffed with ice cream. (Great news for anyone who has ever attempted to eat a full Levain cookie in July and immediately regretted it.)
Photograph: Mark Weinberg
Customers will also be able to order Cookies à la Mode—a warm 6-ounce cookie paired with a scoop of ice cream, customizable with whichever Levain cookie you choose. Then there are the affogatos, which pour fresh espresso over ice cream.
The partnership makes a lot of sense given how deeply both brands are woven into modern New York dessert culture. Levain has spent years evolving from an Upper West Side neighborhood bakery into a full-blown cookie empire, even being named the most popular bakery in America in a 2023 study ranking bakery-related TikTok buzz. Meanwhile, Caffè Panna has become one of the city’s most line-inducing ice cream destinations thanks to owner Hallie Meyer’s Rome-inspired approach to ultra-rich gelato-style scoops and constantly rotating specials.
Basically, if your summer plans involved consuming melted dairy products while standing on a New York sidewalk, the city just handed you a new itinerary.