Bakeshop — Restaurant in Arlington

This is a gem in Clarendon! I had heard about Bakeshop from a friend who raves about their cookies but only recently did I stop in to see for myself. Bakeshop is off the main road, about two blocks south. It's small but packed with baked goodies. They seriously do it all.

Cookies, cupcakes, macarons, pies, pudding, cookiewiches, cakes, croissants, donuts, coffee (they serve Vigilante!), and tea. I believe they are most known for their cookies and cupcakes. Cupcakes are $2.50/each (not bad for D.C. area standards). If you buy 5, you get one free; and if you buy 10, you get 2 free. They have everything from red velvet to salty caramel chocolate to Twix. For macarons, they have lots of traditional flavors (and even some fun ones) like pistachio, raspberry, nutella, birthday cake, salted caramel, thin mint, etc. These flavors change daily.

For cookies, they have salty oak apricots, browned butter chocolate chunk, brookie, oatmeal blueberry, spicy gingersnap, classic peanut butter, and peanut butter pillow. I chose the browned butter chocolate chunk and the brookie. The browned butter chocolate chunk is aptly called their "captain of cookies." Doughy and buttery, this chocolate is packed with chunks of Belgian chocolate. I'm going to elevate its rank and call it the Vice Admiral of Cookies. I never had a better chocolate chip cookie in my life. The brookie was equally delicious. This is the lovechild of a brownie and cookie. It's like eating a brownie in a cookie form. Chocolately goodness that's not too sugary.

Aside from trying their other cookies, I'm looking forward to coming back and try their cookiewich, which sounds like a winning combo of their housemade cookies sandwiched between ice cream from Trickling Springs Creamery. Sounds amazeballs, doesn't it? I also made a mental note to try the Oreo in a Blanket, which is basically chocolate chip cookie dough wrapped around an Oreo. Genius!

Prices are very reasonable. My two cookies were only $4. Where else am I going to find the best chocolate chip cookie of my life for only $2? Bakeshop is my be-all-end-all cookie...

So I rarely post reviews for things because most of the time, it's not necessary. You order or pay for something, you get it, and nothing really needs to be said or done unless there is a major issue. The difference here is that baked goods are kind of a big deal for me and while the experience I had wasn't horrific, it wasn't accurate to the other reviews I'm seeing here.

First, let me preface this with the staff when I came to pick up my order were great. They were super attentive and answered some questions I had, they were all wearing masks, and they got everything squared away perfectly with minimal wait for anything. They were definitely on top of things in the shop.

The reason for a 2 star review is that while their baked goods look nice, (specifically their cupcakes) the cake part itself is extremely bland, and the icing (both buttercream and whipped) were just horrible. I've been to a number of bakeries and this was by far the most disappointed I've been with somewhere so highly rated. I ordered a number of different types, and brought them home to share with the people I live with (about 15 minutes away from the store), and everyone agreed that they all tasted about the same with little variance, and that the icing was subpar.

Now I'm not sure if I got a bad batch, or something happened that day to make things different, but I see a lot of reviews for the cupcakes saying they're excellent so I'm very confused and felt that something else needed to be said. We were all sort of looking forward to this, but ended up not even eating the last 2 (of the 6) that I bought.

If you're coming here for a nice treat, maybe try the macaroons or...

Update: Another 5 Star experience, keep up the great baked goods and excellent service! Me and my boyfriend and I absolutely love this baked shop. My favorite are the macarons. When I tell you they are WORTH EVERY PENNY 🥰 I just want to hand them my wallet and buy sleeve after sleeve. I've been coming here for about 5 years and the macarons look bigger, which is totally fine. I buy a sleeve and eat 1 or 2 and save the rest for the next 2 weeks. If you take them home and put them in the fridge (if you like them that way), they are chewier .💗. Also, they have flavors that are straight out of a willy wonka dream. My experience is always amazing. The only thing thats a bummer is they DO NOT TAKE CASH. I found this out the hard way after 10 minutes of my boyfriend and I picking out our treats. The lady helping was really nice but then we had to drive 30 minutrs to and from a bank to paymobile/card. Just keep that in mind. Everyone was super nice about it, though, and they even gave us free water for our mini adventure we had to take. Just be prepared to pay card or mobile even if you dont see any signs, they didnt have any signs up that we could clearly see (and I looked) after we were made aware. If there are any, it's not visible. Other than that, I will continue to shop here. So even the situation about the card wasn't really bad, just a hick up. I just wanted to let you all know how to pay so that nobody else will be caught off guard. 😊 Do yourself a favor and buy one of these...