Funny Face Bakery Makes Cookies Worth Traveling for on Fulton Street

Funny Face Bakery, founded by art-school dropout turned genius-baker Sarah Silverman, has always had a powerful style. I still have fond memories of the charmingly chintzy green-and-pink painted storefront on East 7th Street, back when the bakery was known as Cupcake Market and doled out the best freakin’ cupcakes in all of downtown.

Funny Face’s new Fulton Street space is bigger, shinier, and decidedly more Instagrammable, the better to fit in with their South Street Seaport environs. The extensive storefront features a blown-out variety of pop culture-inspired frosted sugar cookies, laid out under glass like so many beautiful sugar jewels, in addition to a pink velvet loveseat, a neon ‘Hey Sugar’ sign, and a mirror emblazoned with the words ‘Make A Funny Face.’

Perhaps people need an extra push to get out and experience life, in this weird ‘Is-it-still-a-pandemic-or-am-I-okay-with-the-vaccine?’ phase we’re in. In that case, the Insta-bait serves a good purpose.

But people of New York — tourists — travelers through the metaverse — let me implore you, the ‘real’ cookies at Funny Face Bakery (not the sugar cookie interpolations of a crying Drake) are worth getting off the couch for, worth fighting for — perhaps even worth dying for.

No, not worth dying for. But definitely worth traveling for, instead of Netflix-and-chilling or whatever other silly plan you have for your weekend (don’t act like you’re doing anything better on that couch).

I was reminded of Funny Face’s cookies par-excellence when I stopped by earlier this afternoon to pick up an original chocolate chip cookie. I was at the tail-end of a cookie binge across the Financial District, and so was moving pretty slow; walking out of the bakery into the oppressive sun beaming down on South Street Seaport, I figured I might meander back through FiDi and eat the cookie as the Spirit led me.

I went about four steps before plopping down on a bench and breaking into the cookie. So much for being Spirit-led.

Funny Face’s chocolate chip cookie is almost immodestly fat and rich, the kind of calorie-bomb you might get in trouble for trying to sell anywhere outside New York. The cookie is soft all around; even the dramatically craggly exterior is tender and yielding to touch, and the loads of chocolate chips are as gooey at room temperature as just out of the oven.

A small part of me was tempted to squish the hefty dough into a ball and play catch; but alas, I had no catching partner, and so ate the cookie instead. This turned out to be a much better decision; in a day filled with cookies, Funny Face’s chocolate chip cookie was the chocolatiest, the softest, the butteriest, the most delicious cookie of all.

A 9.2 for Funny Face Bakery. New location, same great taste.

Oh, and for those who are intrigued to try Funny Face but aren’t quite ready to book a flight to New York (or to just get off that couch) ​​— Funny Face ships nationwide. Figured I’d throw that in at the end, after effectively shaming you all for not wanting to travel for cookies.

Until next time.