A milkshake can take any day to the next level, especially if it comes from one of these NYC restaurants serving up the best frosty treats in the city. The milkshakes on these menus are the creme-de-la-creme, bursting with flavor, and perfectly blended for your palate's craving for something cold, creamy, and sweet. Whether you're a fan of strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, or something a little bit more exotic (like a milkshake with a slice of cake on top), you'll find them all at these amazing burger joints and dessert hotspots. Updated for 2024.
The 10 Best Milkshakes in NYC
1. Black Tap (Midtown & SoHo)
Black Tap has a peerless menu of classic shakes, including Black Cherry, Nutella, and Caramel…but it’s the CrazyShakes that gets foodies buzzing. Going for $15-$20 a pop, these sumptuous treats are decadently drizzled in candies, cookies, and baked goods galore. The Cotton Candy Strawberry Shake is a favorite, due to its vanilla-frosted rim, pearl chocolates, lollipop, rock candy, whipped cream and cotton candy toppings. Craving something more on the savory side? Their Sweet 'N' Salty should do the trick.
529 Broome St., SoHo; 917-639-3089 • 136 W. 55th St., Midtown; 212-315-4356 • Singles & Doubles, 45 W. 35th St., Midtown; 646-943-5135
2. Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain (Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn)
Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain, an homage to the soda parlors of yesteryear, is everything you could want. It stocks a quaint, vintage setting with a menu chock-full of sundaes with names like Mr. Potato Head, a long list of ice cream floats, and serious shakes. You can get creative with your milkshake order (think of this as a bar for non-alcoholic beverages), but if you order off the menu, sample their classic black and white with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge. Or go out of this world the Rocket—vanilla and a shot of espresso for a tasty energy booster.
513 Henry St., Carroll Gardens; 718-522-6260
3. Bill’s Bar & Burger (Midtown West & FiDi)
Rockefeller Center is one of two homes to Bill’s Bar & Burger and its unbeatable retro combination of burger-and-shakes. Bill’s offers an ascending trio of milkshakes: Classics, Signatures, and Monsters. Of course you'll find flavors like chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, but the Signatures include Cookies & Dream and s’mores-y Campfire. But wait: the standout option is the Chocolate Peanut Butter Bomb. It’s blended with Reese’s Pieces, salted peanuts, chocolate sauce, and peanut butter cups.
16 W. 51st St., Rockefeller Center; 212-705-8510 • 85 West St., Financial District; 212-894-3800
4. Morgenstern's Finest Ice Cream (West Village)
Morgenstern's serves up texture-driven, small-batch ice cream with a renewed attention to flavor and palate. You can pick up pints and order ice cream cakes. For their milkshakes, try tasty flavors including honey lavender, key lime mojito, and Yuzu poppyseed. 88 West Houston Street, 212-209-7684, morgensternsnyc.com
5.Davey's Ice Cream (East Village & Midtown)
Photo via Instagram
If you love pie, and you love milkshakes, Davey's Ice Cream (various locations) offers a treat marrying the two. The Pie Milkshake is vanilla based, blended with a whole slice of pie. Pie choices include Banana Cream, Peanut Butter, as well as seasonal pie selections throughout the year. Davey's has been serving NYC since 2013, with ice cream homemade in Brooklyn, and locations in the East Village and Midtown. 309 E. 9th Street, 212-228-8032; 350 West 33rd Street, 212-786-7808, daveysicecream.com
6. Milk Bar (NoMad and 7 other locations)
Renowned for both sweet treats and unique recipes, Christina Tosi’s Milk Bar definitely ranks among the best milkshakes in NYC. Specifically, the Crunch Cereal Shake is richly deserving. This specialty of the house is blended with cornflakes to create a smooth yet crunchy texture that tastes like you’re privately slurping down the leftover milk from your morning breakfast bowl (remember those Saturday morning cartoons?). The Birthday Cake Shake hits a similar sweet spot, consisting of Cereal Milk Shake with blended birthday truffles.
Flagship: 1196 Broadway, NoMad; 347-974-4975. Visit the website for 6 more locations.
7. Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (Chinatown)
At the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (Chinatown, LES, and Flushing) you'll find a tasty mashup of Chinese and American flavors, such as Almond Cookie, Ginger, Green Tea, Durian Fruit, Zen Butter (peanut butter ice cream with sesame seeds), and others. Try out the Taro (similar to a potato or yucca) Oreo Milkshakes. New flavors are constantly being created!
Flagship: 65 Bayard Street, Chinatown, 212-608-4170, chinatownicecreamfactory.com
8. Harlem Shake (Harlem & Park Slope, Brooklyn)
Open for delivery, indoor dining, and takeout.
There's a huge assortment of milkshakes to wade through at Harlem Shake (including Black and White, Salted Caramel, Strawberry, Peanut Butter, Chocolate, Vanilla and Cookies and Cream…just to name a few), but it’s the namesake option that tops our list. The Harlem Shake is a red velvet flavored confection, and it’s every bit as mouthwatering as you might imagine. Both locations have a that charming vintage feel and will transporting you back in time to when Batman and Superman were TV characters.
100 W. 124th St., Harlem; 212-222-8300 • 119 Fifth Ave., Park Slope, Brooklyn; 877-717-4253
9. Van Leeuwen (East Village)
For our money, Van Leeuwen serves the best ice cream in the city (and many agree). Their milkshakes pass with flying colors as well, since they’re made from small-batch artisanal ice creams. You can sample flavors like Earl Grey Tea, Sicilian Pistachio, or Salted Caramel. Van Leeuwen’s vegan, coconut-based ice cream is spectacular as well—ask for one scoop of vegan dark chocolate and one scoop of vegan peanut butter chocolate chip in your shake, then thank us later. Or wake up with an affogato: that's vanilla ice cream blended with plenty of chilled espresso. Mmmmmm.
48½ E. 7th St., East Village; 646-476-3865. Visit the website for more locations.
10. Eddie's Sweet Shop (Forest Hills, Queens)
Photo by Linda Sheridan
Just a 15 minute ride out of the city by the Long Island Railroad, Eddie's Sweet Shop is just shy of a century (1925), making it the oldest ice cream shop in NYC. It has also seen its share of fame, with scenes in films such as Remember Me. All of the ice cream is made fresh on site, so treat yourself to a heaping homemade ice cream sundae, ice cream soda, or a Frosted milkshake, with a decadent two scoops!
105-29 Metropolitan Ave., Forest Hills, Facebook Page: Eddie's Sweet Shop
—Additional reporting by Merrill Lee Girardeau, Samantha Aronson, Linda Sheridan, and Patrick Gunn.
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