Eileen's Special Cheesecake, NYC

If you ask New Yorker's the best cheesecake, you'll get a variety of answers.  My personal favorite has been Veniero's, the tourists will all flock to Junior's, and there is a loooong tail of other places that people will swear by.  New York is known for cheesecake after all.  But one place that does come up frequently on best cheesecake lists is Eileen's Special Cheesecake.  Food & Wine named it the best cheesecake in America in 2019.

Like many great stories, Eileen's started by a baker, Eileen, who got talked into selling her cheesecake to friend and neighbors, and eventually as a real bakery in 1975. Her daughters now run the business with her, all family run, all women.  

They make, well, cheesecake of course, in 6", 10", or individual tart sizes.  They offer a few other items like chocolate covered strawberries (random!), cannoli, and chocolate mousse too, but, cheesecake is obviously the focus.  Cheesecakes can be topped with different glazed fruits (strawberry, blueberry, cherry, pineapple, raspberry), or come in specialty flavors like salted caramel, chocolate, cookies n' cream, dulce de leche, banana, chocolate raspberry, birthday cake, and more.  They also do make a gluten-free version, a low sugar version, and even a tofu based vegan one. Special flavors like lemon, lemon with raspberry swirl, key lime, mango, coconut, Bailey's, marble, pina colada, red velvet, pumpkin spice, or heart shaped varieties are available with advance order too.

I finally got a chance to try it when we had a party at the office with the individual tarts.

Individual Cheesecake Tarts

The individual tarts do not have tart shells, so not really what I think of as tarts, but rather are cheesecakes in little cupcake style wrappers, individual sized.

Strawberry. $6.

"A creamy cheesecake filling topped with a sweet strawberry glaze and a whole strawberry, nestled in a crisp tart crust."

The first I tried was strawberry, which is the traditional cheesecake with strawberry topping.

This was a very good traditional cheesecake.  Dense, NY style, very cream cheese forward, but still fairly fluffy.   No hint of lemon, nor touch of vanilla, just, plain, but the sweetness level was good, and it shined in its simplicity.  The crust was fairly average compressed crumb crust.  The topping was extremely good - it looked like fairly standard strawberry goo from a can, but it was really quite flavorful and the perfect level of sweetness that complimented the plain cheesecake well.

****.

Blueberry. $6.

"A creamy cheesecake filling topped with a generous layer of blueberry compote, nestled in a crisp tart shell."

The blueberry was much the same, same base cheesecake, this time with a thick blueberry compote on top.  Again, it looked kinda generic, but I found the sweetness level really ideal, and the thick nature of the compote worked well with the cheesecake.  ****.

Mango. $6.

"Creamy cheesecake infused with mango atop a buttery tart crust."

Another dense, NY style cheesecake, but still somewhat fluffy.  Strong cream cheese flavor.  Mild mango flavor that was light and tropical.  Standard crumb crust (I think a missed opportunity to do something like a coconut crust that would go so well with the mango).  Quite good, although I do generally go for non-fruity flavors of base cheesecake. ***+.

Chocolate Cappuccino. $6.

"A single-serving cheesecake with a cappuccino-flavored chocolate filling, garnished with a coffee bean."

And finally, a chocolate based one.

This was the most unique of the cheesecakes.  The menu description didn't say it, but it had a chocolate crumb crust rather than standard blond graham crust.  I greatly preferred this compressed chocolate soil style.  The cheesecake itself was much like the others - dense NY style, strong cream cheese flavor, etc, etc.  But this one stood out due to how strong the coffee flavor was.  Really quite a strong intense coffee flavor, which I really enjoyed, but definitely not one for those who are lukewarm on coffee flavors.  ****.