Walking into Antoine’s Cookie Shop, the pleasant smell of baked goods washes over you. Massive windows allow light to pool in, creating a warm and sunlit atmosphere. The first bite of one of the array of fresh cookies surprises you with its softness and melts in the mouth — you can tell that each cookie has just left the oven.
With its first branch already a hit in San Mateo, Antoine’s Cookie Shop brought their popular cookies to Town & Country Village when they opened their second location on Jan. 15.
Owner Antoine Tang started his cookie career in 2013, baking cookies for friends in his church group and for other social events.
“They [the church group] told me ‘these are really good, you should sell these and I was like, ‘who’s gonna buy them?’” Tang said. “One of the ladies said ‘I’d buy them,’ … and she bought a dozen cookies from me … My wife helped me set up selling online, and then very slowly, it started growing.”
His cookies soon became a success, and in 2015, Antoine took the leap of faith, quitting his job to expand his business.
“It became so busy that I needed to open a shop, because I couldn’t do it out of my home kitchen anymore,” Tang said. “I certified my home kitchen … and then we opened up our first shop in San Mateo in 2016.”
With the opening of the store’s new branch in Town & Country Village, we decided to try some of Antoine’s fan-favorite cookies.
Chocolate Chip ($1.95)
This classic chocolate chip cookie is crunchy around the edges with a soft interior. The Guittard brand of chocolate chips are the cookie’s namesake for a reason and take center stage, although the melty chocolate load this cookie carries might be a little too much for some. With a textured surface, the cookie has a homemade look and taste, making it far preferable to the bulk packs of manufactured cookies one might find at a grocery store.
Cookies n’ Cream ($1.95)
The Cookies n’ Cream cookie is a unique combination rich with texture from the added pieces of crushed-up Oreo. Each cookie varies from a smooth creamy surface to chunks of Oreo chips. Cookies n’ Cream is named the bestseller for a reason; each bite varies in levels of oreo and its creamy cookie counterpart. The sweetness is perfectly balanced –– not sickeningly sweet but still enough to satisfy a sweet tooth.
Snickerdoodle ($1.95)
This cookie is by far our favorite. It has a crunch and crispiness around the edges like the rest but has a softer center. The cinnamon around it enhances the flavor to produce a better-than-original version of the snickerdoodle cookie. This cookie is thicker than both the Cookies n’ Cream and Chocolate Chip, which produces a more satisfying bite.