Hole-y Grails: 9 Best Doughnut Shops in Dallas Worth a Glaze

When you’re craving doughnuts in Dallas, there are more than enough options to raise your A1C (by a lot). Every neighborhood has its own “DONUT” shop with its unique spin on a dirty dozen, but sometimes you want something with a little extra oomph. And whether that’s a simple glaze or something artisanal, you don’t want to go just anywhere for them. Luckily, no glaze is left behind on this list of the best doughnuts in Dallas.

Urban Donut & Coffee

2805 Allen St.

While other doughnut shops tell you what to look for in a doughnut experience, Urban Donut makes the choice yours with its build-your-own doughnut concept. Step one: choose your doughnut. Yeast? Long john? Step two: choose your icing, frosting or filling. Or all three. Step three: toppings. Finally, step four: find the perfect drizzle or turn your creation into a doughnut shake, ice cream sandwich or lazy sundae. No shame in getting any of the premade flavors like the Ding Dong or Turtle Creek.

La Rue Doughnuts

3011 Gulden Lane (Trinity Groves)

While La Rue Doughnuts is technically the newest doughnut shop to open in Dallas, its three-year run as the bakery side of Carte Blanche made it an obvious addition to this list. The crullers, kolaches, cake doughnuts and other confections here have brought a cult following from Greenville Avenue to La Rue's new home in Trinity Groves. All of the doughnuts are made from scratch. Even the crullers are all turned by hand in the fryer. Following the closure of Carte Blanche, the city practically rejoiced after La Rue announced their doughnut legacy would live on.

Parlor Doughnuts

5100 W. Stacy Road, McKinney, and other locations

For a lot of doughnut shops, the idea is birthed from a passion for baking. Parlor Doughnuts, however, culminated from many late nights on the road, while a father followed his son's band across the country. After discovering what doughnuts and coffee could be, they were inspired to pave a new world of doughnuts with their famous layered doughnuts. Not quite yeast and not quite cake, their flavors are indulgent as they come, with options for vegan, gf and four-legged folks as well.

Moreish Donuts

2605 Fort Worth Ave.

Aesthetics and Instagrammable branding aside, you're in good hands with any shop labeled with a glowing "DONUT" sign above the door. Moreish is one of those gems and is an unexpected go-to in Oak Cliff for doughnuts. At $1 a pop for any doughnut, Moreish is practically handing them out for free. They're done in the traditional style, but just slightly elevated, which separates them from any ol' doughnut shop.

The Salty

2049 N. Pearl St. (pop-up) and 414 W. Davis St.

Amanda and Andy Rodriguez started The Salty in 2014 with a maxed out credit card and a dream back. Beginning as a pop-up shop in a 1950s Aljoa camper, the mini-franchise has since spread to Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Dallas, Miami and many tier-two and tier-three cities across the U.S. The couple knows how transformative a "a really freakin’ good doughnut" can be and they strive to tell stories through their ever-changing menu of flavors. Their Dallas location shows its Texas pride with its chocolate Texas sheet cake and cheddar kolache with Terry Black's barbecue inside.

Hypnotic Donuts & Biscuits

9007 Garland Road

Hypnotic Donuts is the mother of doughnut shops in Dallas. It was the first craft doughnut shop to open here in 2011 and has since garnered street cred from NY Magazine, Thrillist, Eater and plenty of others. Even Playboy. It came as no surprise, though, because the staff source local ingredients, invent crazy recipes, craft all the glazes, icings and fillings in-house, and hand-make all the donuts fresh daily. Although known for their high sugar content, the addition of savory chicken biscuits is what sealed the deal for the shop and the rest is history. They sell the famous Homer Simpson doughnut as well as the Ski Accident, which is a raspberry-filled Long John covered in powdered sugar.

Jarams Doughnuts

2117 Abrams Road

Jarams Doughnuts is a Lakewood favorite for morning sweets. The doughnut portfolio is a force to be reckoned with, too: funnel cake doughnuts, croissant roll doughnuts, Average Joes, cake, buttermilk and glazed. They're big on events and house parties and can create logo, letter-shaped or themed doughnuts for anything. Watch out for seasonal flavors that are arguably some of the coolest flavors around, like the Father's Day Guinness Doughnuts.

Hurts Donut Co.

3288 Main St.

We didn't know such great things came out of Missouri. OK, jk (sorta). Hurts Donut Co. is a mini doughnut franchise that started in Springfield, Missouri, and now has locations stretching from Tempe, Arizona, to Miami. The menu has a lot nostalgia-based doughnut flavors like THE Brownie, inspired by Cosmic Brownies, plus others separated by base: Long Johns, chocolate cake, ring, white cake, Bullseye, Bismark, red velvet and others. The folks at Hurts consider themselves the rebels of doughnuts and see each flavor as a love letter to you. See? Romance isn't dead.

Shipley Do-Nuts

Various Locations

Shipley Do-Nuts started in Houston before World War II, and almost nine decades later remains a legend for its simple plain glazed doughnut. So light and fluffy, these morsels are distinct for the pure airiness. If you're lucky enough to get a warm one ... forget about it. The cake doughnuts have a cult following too. Once a local shop changed the shapes just slightly (the hole was smaller) and people were ready to riot. Panic. Fear. Chaos in the streets. The apple fritters are the Rolex of doughnuts. Raise your kids right — raise them on Shipley's. These are priced to move, too; simple and nothing fancy.

Voodoo Doughnut

1806 Greenville Ave.

Voodoo Doughnut's "world doughnut domination" started between two nightclubs in Portland circa 2003 and has since spread to 22 locations across seven states over the last two decades. Luckily, our Texas pride didn't get in the way of this West Coast transplant opening a Dallas location last November. We couldn't help but fall in love with the slightly inappropriate and imaginative flavors that range from the Marshall Mathers, a plain cake doughnut covered in white frosting and mini M&M, to the Butter Fingering, made with devil’s food cake, vanilla frosting and Butterfinger crumbles.