Buffalo is Home to the Best Doughnuts in New York

The best doughnuts in New York state come from Buffalo.

Food & Wine named Paula's Donut's the best in New York State. The family owned business offers hand cut doughnuts, baked the old fashioned way - fresh every day right on the premises.

New York had no idea what it started back in 1994, when a 31-year-old Mark Isreal began making doughnuts with organic flour and Ronnybrook Farms milk in a tiny wholesale-only space on the Lower East Side, selling them for a then-astonishing $1.75 apiece at places like Balducci's and Gourmet Garage.

Paula's Donuts offers over 30 varieties of doughnuts, with some made to order. The Cannoli Donut is the most popular and it was only meant to be a one time thing. It was created in 2019 for a Buffalo charity. After selling more than 45,000 of the Cannoli donuts, the shop decided to bring them back, according to Food and Wine.

Other specialty doughnuts include the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Lucky Charms, Caramel Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Black Raspberry Reese Peanut Butter Puff, Reese Peanut Butter Puff with Chocolate and Maple Bacon.

Paula serves more than just doughnuts too. Pick up pastries, muffins, bagels, breakfast sandwiches, carrot cake, coffee, cappuccino, tea, hot chocolate, and cold beverages at three locations in western New York - Tonawanda, Clarence and West Seneca.

Best Doughnuts in Central New York

In central New York, Dunn's Bakery in Canastota has been serving up to die for donuts for 5 generations. It first opening in 1892 in Oneida as Seitz Bakery and moved to Canastota in 1966. The secret to their incredibly fresh donuts isn't in the recipe, it's in the baker Tom Dunn. "We've had others try to make the same donuts with the same recipe, but they don't taste the same," explained Karen Dunn Seelman.

Pick up your Dunn's donuts on Peterboro Street in Canastota. But you better get there early. They sell out almost every day.