I’m not one to rave about cookies. Especially the chocolate chip cookie, and I’m not sure why. Maybe I feel I’ve mastered the chocolate chip cookie in my own kitchen? But the chocolate chip cookie baked and sold in-house at Union Kitchen Grocery is most definitely the best chocolate chip cookie I have ever had.
And not to my surprise, this cookie is known well by foodies around DC. It was first introduced at The Blind Dog Café in 2012. And demand for the award-winning chocolate chip cookies quickly outgrew the Café’s small on-site kitchen. This led the owners to a 7,500 square-foot warehouse — a great space but much too large for their needs — so they decided to share the kitchen with other culinary businesses, their “members.” Union Kitchen Grocery offers more than 100 Union Kitchen Member products, local meats and produce, alongside a made-to-order breakfast and lunch foods counter.
Maybe they brown the butter before stirring it into the rest of the dough? Maybe they use a type of exotic sugar unknown to me? Maybe their story makes these cookies so irresistible? Or maybe it’s the process of layering slivers of quality chocolate with the delicious dough and baking the cookie only until the edges are showing a slight brown crisp and the insides are sure to be moist and gooey? We may never know as the recipe has never been publicly shared.
Union Kitchen Grocery bakes by batch and the cookies are either 1) just about to come out of the oven or 2) are still warm from the oven. Either way, it’s worth spending some time perusing this neighborhood purveyor of local goods while grabbing this perfect cookie.
Union Kitchen Grocery (538 3rd Street NE, Washington DC )
