About a year ago, some friends of mine in San Francisco planned an “Italian party.” It was a simple idea: a potluck-style dinner where everyone brought an Italian dish. There were homemade pizzas, focaccia, lots of wine, cheese, roasted cauliflower and bruschetta. I had the perfect idea for what to bring: rainbow cookies.
But when I presented the rainbow cookies at the party, not a single attendee had ever heard of them. If you’re a West Coast native reading this, there’s a good chance you haven’t either.
Rainbow cookies are a distinctly East Coast thing. Almondy, soft and sweet with dark chocolate and jam, rainbow cookies are also known as tricolor cookies, Venetian cookies or seven-layer cookies.
As the story goes, in the early 1900s, Italian immigrants in New York City created the cookie as a tribute to their heritage—hence the red, green and white layers reflecting the Italian flag. The cookies are distinctly American: There’s no exact match in Italy, although they tend to appear around Christmastime.
In the early 1900s, rainbow cookies were also adopted by New York’s Jewish communities. Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe began to settle in the same neighborhoods as Italian Americans, like the Lower East Side. Jewish bakeries adapted rainbow cookies to be kosher, substituting margarine for butter and dyeing the white layer yellow.
Technically, the Italian rainbow cookie is not Italian (it’s Italian American), not a cookie (it’s a cake) and not even a full rainbow.
Making rainbow cookies is a labor-intensive process: Three layers of almond-flavored cake are baked, with one layer dyed red, one green and one left white to reflect the colors of the Italian flag. Once the layers cool, jam is spread between each layer of cake, and a coat of chocolate is added on top. After setting, the cake is sliced into rectangular cookies.
While I’m not Italian or Jewish, I grew up 90 miles north of New York City and have been eating rainbow cookies for as long as I can remember. My love for them is simple: They taste delicious, and they have a cool history.
In my decade living outside of New York state, I’ve sought out rainbow cookies everywhere I’ve lived—Baltimore, Maine, Colorado and San Francisco—and often failed to find them. In San Francisco, I couldn’t find them anywhere, not even in North Beach, the city’s Little Italy. (I’ve since heard they’re available at Dianda’s Italian American Pastry in the Mission.)
To make up for the lack of rainbow cookies out west, every time my father picks me up at Newark Airport, he arrives with a box of fresh rainbow cookies from The Bakery in New Paltz, New York. Their small cookies, which have five layers and are displayed alongside other Jewish delicacies like rugelach and babka, remain my gold standard.
I was delighted to learn upon moving to Los Angeles that rainbow cookies are very much available, despite most of my West Coast colleagues never having heard of them. I made it my mission to find as many as I could in Los Angeles. Once I started, my short list quickly expanded.
While I don’t have a formal grading rubric for rainbow cookies, I do have personal preferences developed from sampling dozens over the years. My favorites feature a strong almond flavor, sweet and plentiful jam and a generous layer of dark chocolate on top. I lean toward a dense, moist texture rather than a lighter, cake-like one. That said, this list isn’t about determining the best rainbow cookie—it’s about spreading the word about where to find these amazing cookies.
Bay Cities Italian Deli
1517 Lincoln Blvd, Santa Monica
This Santa Monica-based market, deli, and bakery has been serving up Italian specialties since 1925. You can stop by for fresh pasta dishes or deli salads to go, or order their signature sandwich, the Godmother. Bay Cities had their rainbow cookies stored in ready-to-go containers in a fridge. This version of the cookie came in one tall, thick piece that looked and tasted almost like a slice of cake. I prefer a more dense, smaller rainbow cookie, but I loved the intense almond flavor of this version.
Canter’s Deli
419 N Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles
Canter’s is a huge, old-school Jewish-style delicatessen in Los Angeles’s Miracle Mile District. Originally opened in 1931 in the historically Jewish Boyle Heights neighborhood, Canter’s is a Los Angeles icon. It’s likely the only restaurant on this list where you can order a rainbow cookie 24/7. The deli and bakery are open every day except for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This late-night schedule reflects the restaurant’s rock-and-roll history: It’s long been a gathering place for musicians, hippies, artists, and actors. Their rainbow cookie was the first I tried on the West Coast. It’s also a Jewish-style version with four layers—pink, green, yellow and brown—showcasing a variation from the traditional colors of the Italian flag. Topped with a ton of chocolate sprinkles, these cookies had a light, crumbly texture that was the most cake-like of all I tried.
Eagle Rock Italian Bakery
1726 Colorado Blvd, Los Angeles
Eagle Rock Italian Bakery, founded in 1949, operates with an old-fashioned pull-a-number system. Their rainbow cookies were worth the wait and became one of my favorites. Proudly displayed among a variety of other authentic Italian cookies, Eagle Rock’s rainbow cookies were visually impressive, with perfectly proportioned red, white and green layers covered in plentiful chocolate sprinkles. They were the perfect amount of sweet, with a subtle almond flavor and dense, cakey texture.
Factor’s Famous Deli
9420 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles
Factor’s is a Jewish deli that has been at its location in Pico-Robertson since 1948. They’re known for their pastrami Reubens. Their rainbow cookies were displayed as a full block, with only the chocolate-coated side visible, so be sure to ask at the takeout counter if you don’t immediately recognize them. The cookies were cut to serve by the extremely friendly staff, and I enjoyed them in the restaurant’s booth-lined interior. Representing the Jewish variation on the Italian original, these cookies had four layers—a brown bottom layer was added—and were coated with chocolate on both the top and bottom. The texture was dense, and the flavor was rich—all on track with what I remember from New York’s rainbow cookies. It makes sense—the staff shared that their chef is originally from New York and makes these in-house.
Ggiata Deli
Various locations, 83 Windward Ave, Venice
Ggiata Deli was founded by three friends from New Jersey who made it their mission to introduce Los Angeles to East Coast Italian staples, including, as their website states, “traditional rainbow cookies.” Starting with no food background, they’ve experienced viral success since opening their first location in March 2021 in historic Melrose Hill. Now, Ggiata delis can be found in West Hollywood, Highland Park and Venice, where I ventured to try the rainbow cookies they claim are “the best in L.A.” These cookies were served in pairs. They had a soft texture and generous layers of jam and dark chocolate. However, the flavor wasn’t my favorite—it leaned more toward peanut than almond.
Jon & Vinny’s
Various locations, 11938 San Vicente Blvd, Los Angeles
Jon & Vinny’s is a local Italian-American restaurant chain with five Los Angeles locations. They’re known for their wood-fired oven and house-made pastas, which were being served left and right when I stopped by their Brentwood location. Among their extensive dessert menu, you’ll find Italian rainbow cookies. Their version was the smallest of all the cookies I tried, and at two for $4.25, it felt overpriced. These were certainly the most visually appealing—the bright colors were the spitting image of the Italian flag—but the flavor lacked a bold almond taste.
Monte Carlo Italian Market & Deli
3103 W Magnolia Blvd, Burbank
Step inside Monte Carlo, and you’re transported to an old school East Coast Italian neighborhood. This old-school gem in Burbank has been family-operated since the 1960s. It offers an Italian deli, grocery store, bakery, gelato bar and restaurant. Called Pinocchio’s, the restaurant serves incredibly delicious, shockingly affordable Italian pasta dishes, slid over the counter on trays. The rainbow cookies are in the bakery section, and they were so good. With a perfect, moist texture, these were probably my favorite Italian version of the cookies I tried, and it was definitely my favorite business.
Scopa Italian Roots
2905 Washington Blvd, Venice
Scopa is an upscale, New York-inspired Italian restaurant in Venice. You’d never guess from their industrial-chic interior that they had rainbow cookies. However, you can order them as part of the dessert menu. The group of eight cookies was beautifully presented in a pink to-go box with a bow. The cookies themselves were as beautiful as their packaging—bright and flashy. They were delicious, but not standouts: the taste wasn’t memorable.
Sorrento Italian Deli
5518 Sepulveda Blvd, Culver City
Culver City has been getting Italian staples from Sorrento Italian Deli since 1963, when it was opened by Italian immigrant Albert Vera Sr. and his wife Ursula. Now run by Albert’s son, Albert Vera Jr., the shop continues to sell Italian favorites. The man working the counter proudly told me their rainbow cookies are shipped straight from the source: New York. They’re available in a pre-packaged box or à la carte from the case. These cookies weren’t the freshest, but with the right texture and price, they’re an easy-to-access, solid example of what a rainbow cookie can be.
The Quest Continues
A quest that I thought would yield just a few cookies has far surpassed my expectations. I still think the East Coast does rainbow cookies best, but Los Angeles has impressed me. I’ll spread the gospel: Los Angeles has good rainbow cookies, too! Consider this list my personal plea, West Coasters: make rainbow cookies a part of your diet.
My rainbow cookie quest is on hiatus for now, and I certainly can’t promise that I’ve found all of Los Angeles’s rainbow cookies yet. If you know of a place I missed, send me an email at emardine@usc.edu.