The Vegan Treatory

The Verdict

Ponsonby Central just scored the cookie shop. They’re soft-baked, they’re chunky, they’re entirely plant-based and they’re pulling people off the streets of Ponsonby for a fix. Yes siree, where previously you could only get your vegan cookie fix online, or at the occasional factory pop-up, The Vegan Treatory now has permanent digs. 

Stephanie van der Merwe launched The Vegan Treatory back in 2019 with a trio of flavours. Since then, the team have churned out over 50 flavours (including some gluten-free iterations) and have added longboi doughnuts, brownie and pails of cookie dough to their repertoire. 

Now if you’re wondering how on earth you’re going to choose from 50 flavours rest assured they’re currently stocking about 10 cookie varieties at any one time plus or minus the aforementioned doughnuts, brownies and cookie dough. Even still, the choice remains a tricky one—in the short period we were at the shop we witnessed countless people agonise over which flavour to get, one woman even returning five minutes post-purchase to snag a second cookie for the road. Needless to say we applauded her from the sidelines. 

The struggle is definitely real and short of buying one of everything they’ve got—a great option, always—we’d recommend starting with the gateway classic choccy chunk or their oatmeal choc chunk if it’s around, dubbed an everyday cookie by Stephanie and we’re inclined to agree. 

You won’t find the matcha cookie on their website at the moment which is just another reason to stop by the cookie shop. Stephanie launched the first edition some years back to critical acclaim and felt she simply had to bring it back to mark the shop’s opening—this edition’s stuffed with biscoff and topped with strawberry cream. Yes, you can now have your strawberry matcha and eat it too. 

So you’ve got a matcha cookie in your mitts but then there’s the peanut butter brownie cookie—fudgy brownie cookie dough, chunks of Whittaker’s chocolate and creamy PB and rolled in peanut brownie crumbs—the nutella doughnut cookie which is obviously essential eating and we never knew we needed tiramisu in cookie form but now we’ve had it, we can’t stop-won’t stop. (That’s not us drooling over our keyboard by the way.) 

Haven’t found your perfect cookie yet? When we swung by they were also slinging double choccy chunk, mint slice, gingerbread white choc, and biscoff white choc plus jam and cream and biscoff longbois and a fridge full of cookie dough. Hot damn. Ok, we’ve gone full circle—there’s no wrong way to cookie but treating yourself to a bundle is, objectively, the only right way forward. 

Cookie monsters, assemble.

Words: Alice Rich | Imagery credit: Wono Kim

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