Charles Pan-Fried Chicken is a high temple of barbecued ribs, pulled pork, and of course, thighs and drumsticks that are fried to order in massive cast-iron skillets. The chicken is some of the city’s best, but too much fried skin is liable to knock you without a sweet finish. Try the banana pudding: a small plastic cup with slices of banana floating throughout and wafer cookies perched on top. There’s peach cobbler, sweet potato pie, and red velvet cake, too.

At the acclaimed Tatiana, the bodega special is as much time machine as it is dessert.  A nod by chef Kwame Onwuachi to the storefront treats from his childhood, the course is presented with minimal fanfare. A “cosmic” brownie, complete with rainbow sprinkles, and a trio of what appears to be diminutive powdered sugar doughnuts that look as if they were pulled right out of the Little Debbie sleeves and plated. The doughnuts turn out to be powdered sugar doughnut-flavored ice cream, and the brownie is perfect.

The luxury of a dessert souffle is on full display at this Rockefeller Center dazzler. Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr, the team behind Frenchette, have brought in Michelle Palazzo as executive pastry chef. Currently, a cherry soufflé is available for dinner: The eggy concoction dissolves on the tongue like a cloud, while the requisite creme anglaise (poured tableside) helps bring down the temperature and add a dose of richness.

Pastry chef Emiko Chisholm makes a classic Viennese apple strudel — a high-labor, traditional take on the dessert — with rum raisins and toasted hazelnuts, served with a scoop of buttermilk ice cream. All of Chisholm’s works are outstanding here, a restaurant worthy of a one-of-everything approach to desserts. (Just be patient should you decide to get the made-to-order lingonberry souffle.)

In San Sabino’s panna cotta, co-owners Angie Rito and Scott Tacinelli (behind Don Angie, next door) have created one of the more unique and deceptively named desserts in the city.  Served in an ice cream sundae glass, the multi-layered dessert is a nod both to her Sicilian grandfather’s pastiera (a homestyle grain cake) and her love of Southeast Asian flavors, particularly Thai sticky rice. Rito’s take starts at the top, with a crown of mascarpone granita with toasted makapuno coconut and a floral lemon agrumato oil. A light disc of panna cotta, the next layer down, makes for a lovely contrast in flavor and texture, followed by a bed of candied pistachios and coconut cream. At the bottom of the glass is a rich pyramid of sticky rice, with pistachio puree, cinnamon, Sicilian candied lemon, and mascarpone. Layer by layer, Rito weaves these Silician and Thai notes together and finds common ground. The result is a surprising, complex dessert, lush and light by turns, that draws clearly from its respective culinary traditions, yet in doing so, says something new.  It is some kind of flex to create a dish with such ingenuity and call it something so simple. 

The affogato at Torrisi is a good choice for diners seeking something light-ish to cap the evening.  A twist on the traditional hot espresso over gelato (affogato means “drowned” in Italian), Torrisi’s affogato is served in a high-stemmed glass with a creamy, rich vanilla ice cream at its base, followed by a layer of stick hot fudge, and topped with decaf coffee granita: It is tiramisu-like in its layered construction. You may start off wanting only a bite and find yourself finishing the entire glass.

If awards were given out for sheer chutzpah in desserts, Momoya Soho’s parfait sundae would be on the shortlist. A nod by pastry chef Norie Uematsu to her love of Japan’s trademark sweet, the seasonally rotating parfait is one of the few desserts in the city that comes with an explanatory pamphlet, replete with diagram. Classic elements for Japanese-style parfaits usually include mochi, a crunchy element, ice cream or soft serve, and azuki (red bean). Uematsu takes her cue from these basic components and turns them up to 11.  At nearly a foot in height, assembled from seventeen individual elements (not ingredients, elements), Uematsu’s whimsical parfait, currently in its “hana kanmuri” spring incarnation, starts with red shiso jelly at the base, meant to symbolize Mount Fuji at dusk, then layers pistachio ice cream, a scoop of light acai amazake strawberry sorbet, and goes on from there. Uematsu’s favorite highlights include the carefully stained butterfly wing mochi filled with bean paste, a delicate matcha cookie with a tiny ladybug, and a spun candy wreath decorated with edible petals.  Due to the time-consuming, complex construction, Momoya Soho only offers a limited number of parfaits per service.

At the end of the tasting menu at the two-starred Jungsik, diners are presented with a “main dessert,” a signature, tour-de-force. A best kept secret is that, space permitting, the attentive staff will allow sweet-toothed guests to order the same dessert a la carte at the bar.  For her debut as the Jungsik’s latest pastry chef, Grace Kim has created a small marvel: At first glance, Kim’s Dolhareubang is an optical illusion, not a dessert but a miniature scene, inspired by spring time on Jeju Island, her favorite place in South Korea. A small, smiling stone statue, the dessert’s namesake and popular island god, reveals itself to be a black bean cream confection with a hazelnut and cocoa nib heart, sprayed with white chocolate and sesame to create the basalt rock-like exterior.  The field is a light crumble dyed yellow with geranium petals. The boulders are airy, crunchy sesame cookies, while grass is made from redolent matcha, and so on.  In lesser hands, this might come across as style over substance, but Kim’s flavors are well considered, each element filled with meaning and representing Korean notes like toasted rice and barley, that Dolhareubang conjures a wonderful sense of place and memory.

When Crown Shy first opened, critics and diners praised the innovative dessert menu.  Five years on, the sweet selection at the late chef-founder James Kent’s flagship remains standout, with items like a Creamsicle-like orange satsuma ice cream topped with toasted marshmallow, or the pistachio-adorned, baklava cheesecake in a phyllo purse. The sticky toffee pudding for two may be the most accessible introduction to Crown Shy’s approach to desserts. By itself, the pudding leans traditional, bordering on overly sweet, the dark caramel and salt bringing a welcome hint of savoriness. Together with the brightly tart green apple sorbet, topped with cool chantilly cream, the dessert becomes something else altogether, a study in contrast and a bold pairing. 

Bed-Stuy’s Macosa Trattoria is the kind of place that makes you feel like a regular on first visit, with reasonable prices and heavy-handed wine pours. After polishing off Italian dishes like chicken liver crostini and oxtail ragu, ask for the tiramisu, which may well be the best version of the dessert you’ve never tried. It’s as airy as they come, more mascarpone than anything else, and covered in a mound of chocolate shavings.

Rawia Bishara’s Palestinian restaurant in Bay Ridge offers a variety of fine Middle Eastern sweets, including piney sahlab custard, dense semolina-coconut harissa cake, and anise-y macaroni cookies. But if you’re here for dessert, chances are, you’re here for the knafeh, a giant slab of baked sweet cheese covered in filo and soaked in aromatic orange blossom syrup. Half the fun is watching a server slice it tableside and stretch out the cheese like a pizzaiolo. A small order feeds two to three people; a large order feeds four to six.