The 10 Best Candy Shops in NYC

Ashley Hoffman

If you've got a sweet tooth, you probably don't need much of an excuse to go stock up on all the major candy food groups: candy corn (veggies), gummies (fruit,) nostalgic chocolate (dairy), chocolate with nuts (protein), and marshmallow-y things (oxygen). New York City's best candy shops offer those options and more, from candy-encased alcohol to Oreo-filled chocolate brains. Tell yourself you're buying these things for the kids, or the office, if you must. We won't tell anyone that you plan to wolf all that candy down yourself. Here are the 10 best candy shops in NYC.

Ashley Hoffman

10. Li-Lac Chocolates, (40 Eighth Avenue; 212-924-2280)
This chocolatier turns out chocolate-covered grahams and s'mores that'll make just about any child-at-heart salivate. The shop's tagline is "stubbornly old-fashioned since 1923," so look for vintage treats like caramel apples coated in white chocolate, dark chocolate, and nonpareils. For Halloween, Li-Lac sells a pear-sized chocolate skull, solid chocolate mummies in coffins, and Death Pops, which recall Edvard Munch's The Scream, but with creepier teeth.

Ashley Hoffman

9. H Mart, (25 West 32nd Street; 212-695-3283)
This Korean grocery store gets jammed with people loading up on a week's worth of groceries, but to hell with the kimchi. Among the flavor-straddling selection of sweet and sour candies, choose the pumpkin candy, lip-puckering sour Super Soda candy, and the Milkita candies, hard suckers that turn into delectably creamy, chewy coins.

Ashley Hoffman

8. Sugarfly Alley (320 Franklin Avenue, Brooklyn; 347-985-3321)
Sugarfly owner Stacy Desmond wanted to bring a candy store to Bed-Stuy because she felt the neighborhood was overrun with taco joints and hipster coffee shops. "It's a good old candy rush," she says. "I have the older people outside the store dancing because it's nostalgic for them." Come Halloween, the glassware on the lime-green shelves inside this narrow space gets loaded with vampire teeth and mustache lollipops. Get yourself hooked on the gummy body parts, which include a set of glowing fangs, a black foot, and green fingers that taste like Swedish Fish. Or try the brain: two Oreos covered in white chocolate and dyed with natural food coloring to make them the suspicious orange color of Cheetos.