12 Starbucks Reserve Menu Items | Our Local Café Would Be Great

Starbucks Reserve has few locations in the country, unfortunately. Reserve locations appeal to more people than premium coffee and cocktails. This is especially true for those who live far from one and have only fueled up before seeing the Empire State Building on a day out. Although Reserve-exclusive lattes, martinis, or unique flavor combinations may cost a lot, as a regular visitor, I can attest that you generally get what you pay for.

If you’re visiting one of Starbucks’ flagship stores, you should try all the options and ask the baristas and bartenders to prepare something extra special. Using those highly prized Reserve blends you can purchase, you can save a lot of money making coffee at home. However, you came to go with gusto, didn’t you? 

Starbucks Reserve experiences can’t be taken home, just like the expertise and expensive machinery used to make some of these dishes and drinks can’t be fully replicated. So why would you get the same cake pops you can order anywhere? In light of that, here are some of my favorite Starbucks Reserve menu items that I wish were available everywhere.

12 Starbucks Reserve Menu Items

1- Pistachio Raspberry Tart

You may know that sometimes something tastes amazing despite only a vague awareness of its ardently European name, and that’s what I learned about frangipane today. As long as it pairs well with raspberry jam, I’m sold. You had me at Hello, which is another ardently European word. This is made of pistachio, so it’s already on the right track. This cake can only grow from here and oh my stars and garters, a raspberry jelly center is too much, I cannot possibly — more pistachio? A white chocolate ganache topped with toasted pistachios? More raspberries, freeze-dried to intensify their flavor. Is this heaven or what?

There is no question as to why Starbucks doesn’t sell this pistachio raspberry tart in its local stores. Now, the question arises as to why it is not offered everywhere and at all chains. It should be replaced with apple pie for future “as American as…” statements. It’s more than just a dessert for the Reserve. It’s the dessert you’ll want to enjoy on your deathbed at age 101 as your final meal. Starbucks, get at us.

2- Caprese on Focaccia

This caprese is closer to a traditional pizza than any of the slices on this list because it contains the same ingredients. Although it has mozzarella, tomato, arugula, and olive oil, this version is different. The fresh cheese contrasts beautifully with the crusty, pillowy bread. The ripe tomatoes serve as a pleasant contrast, rather than burying the greens in a sweet, rich sauce.

You can enjoy your deconstructed or reconstructed not-pizza on a day that isn’t designed to be hot. While hot pizza is superior to cold, never-cooked pizza (excluding bread) falls somewhere in between. Come on, Starbucks, make this one a national deal even if it’s only for a limited time. Stacking fresh tomatoes and arugula between crispy focaccia, standing in for fresh basil’s peppery flavor is what people (me) want.

3- Funghi Pizza Slice

As a reviewer for Starbucks products, I’ve reviewed a lot of products and this is one of the best. Sure, mushroom pizza is everywhere, but most times it’s button mushrooms, not the better hen of the woods mushrooms.

As you can see, most of these picks lean toward complex, even baroque, to justify the Reserve’s admittedly high price margins. When something is difficult to do right, or it takes more effort than it is worth for a few minutes of satisfaction, I take it to the professionals. But here, simplicity wins. Using only ingredients unlikely to have in your fridge (fontal cheese for this flatbread), paired with fresh, not dried herbs, this flatbread has no problems. As each element asserts its character, they eventually come together in a march toward glory.

4- Smoked Salmon & Cream Cheese On Seeded Cornetto

A few cornettos are available, but this is the most delicious. With smoky cured salmon, red onion, peppery green notes from arugula, and a schmear of thick cream cheese, this is the classic brunch combination. While an everything bagel is served at the Lower East Side brunch, a cornetto will be served at the Starbucks Reserve brunch. Getting artsy does not require you to sacrifice sesame. (The Italian breakfast pastry is still seeded, however.) 

As salmon is a little denser and more expensive than your average bagel with cream cheese, it is a good choice. In terms of cost, you might as well get the cornetto sandwich that’s comparable to what NYC brunch spots charge dramatically for salmon. In any case, it’s delicious.

5- Porchetta & Egg On Ciabatta

Starbucks offers satisfying breakfast sandwiches on ciabatta rolls, a widely underrated roll. Do you know what isn’t underrated? Porchetta. Everyone who has ever tasted porchetta dreams about it like it’s the One That Got Away for the rest of their lives. Get to her now, you young fool. Book your flight to a city with Starbucks Reserve. Look your barista in the eyes and say, “I would like to be reunited with Porch

Moments later, your lips touch. A cage-free egg has shown you the tender joys of soft cooking. You’re making things spicy now. Oh, no, that’s the salsa verde (Italian-style, in keeping with the porchetta theme). But it is still delicious. Let’s order it around the corner next time, Starbucks, so we don’t sneak away every year for a food tryst. Let’s make porchetta and eggs on ciabatta work in our daily lives!

6- Whiskey Barrel-Aged Malt

The malted milkshake ends up like an orange creamsicle because it includes whiskey barrel-aged cold brew blended with malt … you don’t know whether it’s the same spent grains used to create whiskey. Everybody finds themselves in strange places in life.

A vanilla gelato base is topped with chocolate, orange bitters, and whipped cream, before topping the almost requisite cherry and whipped cream. There is no doubt that the whipped cream is excellent, and since this is Starbucks Reserve, the cherries are amarena (preserved in syrup). Technically, it isn’t alcoholic, but it sure feels indulgent to the point of vice.

7- Final Say

Starbucks invented the green tea lime rickey, right? Matcha is mixed with four spirits (El Tesoro Blanco tequila and three liqueurs), lime, and cherry, but the amarena cherry is also coffee-infused for a hint of dirty matcha flavor. It would be wonderful if the amarena were a Luxardo, but this is already a high-quality product.

For your convenience, the liqueurs are Liquore Strega, Verino Mastiha Antica, and Royal Combier, which will save you some searching on the internet despite working in this spirits field for a long time. In the beginning, you’ll get Chartreuse and Fernet Branca, in the middle, you’ll get an aperitif mastic with an herbal combination as brilliant as Bomb the Music Industry, and in the last, you’ll find two more Combier liqueurs paired with cognac for a sweet and spicy finish.

8- Hot Honey Ginger Spritz

This is the one hot honey pick that has nothing to do with sweeteners, but here it is. There’s an impression that mixing ginger beer and pickled ginger would cancel out the effects of either. However, you’re pairing sweet and fizzy with salty and crunchy. While ginger root has a common core, the contrasts and textures allow them to stand out in harmony. 

As soon as you see that the drink is garnished with a cinnamon stick and has been flavored even more with capsaicin, you’ve already ordered another and are about to write Starbucks to ask why the drinks aren’t available at your local Starbucks. This is truly an audacious combination, isn’t it? Oh, and it’s also topped off with coffee.

9- The Whiskey Cloud

The Westland single malt in this drink isn’t a Scotch, but you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for one if it wasn’t a Scotch. While I know Starbucks will not offer cocktails anytime soon, let’s dream. Even though the American Tobacco Board of Directors created the official designation American Single Malt just days before 2024, American single malts have been available for quite some time without an official category.

In the same way Americans transform single malt into a new drink, Starbucks Reserve mixologists preserve what works while enhancing its flavors. In addition to coffee, Amaro Averna, Scrappy’s chocolate bitters, an unspecified syrup flavor (probably simple syrup, unadorned), and cream and nutmeg, they make a lush drink best consumed slowly — not because it’s loaded with alcohol, but so you’re not too full before dinner. Dessert should always be eaten first, even during cocktail hour, since life is short. However, they may tell you that one is enough to save room for Starbucks Reserve meals.

10- Nitro Almondmilk Mocha

The nitrogen in all drinks is divine. My bartending roommate once poured me a Guinness. She apologized before he drank it because her manager had hooked it up to carbon dioxide aeration instead. I wanted more nitro drinks: Nitrogen fizz and bubble tea. Nitrogen hot cocoa, even Nitrogen egg cream. For now, the mocha with Starbucks Reserve Espresso and almond milk will do for me. My coffee isn’t even made with almond milk, yet I want one.

You can drink this drink at a slow pace when you want to take your time. The tiny nitrogen bubbles cascade almost endlessly in 12 ounces of ambient visual entertainment without the worry of freezing. If this drink ever comes to store shelves, bring your see-through cup.

11- Toffeenut Bianco Latte

It’s not a joke that Starbucks makes a white chocolate mocha latte with health bar ingredients. If I can get it down without talking, I’m sold. There’s already a winner with the salted brown buttery topping in other Starbucks drinks, like the pistachio latte available nationwide, so at least part of this drink’s enjoyment comes from it. You might find this one to be referred to as a Hazelnut Bianco Latte in your area, by the way.

Although Starbucks Reserve stores are supposed to serve this decadent indulgence, regular storefronts aren’t strangers to rich, sweet drinks given how many variations there are to milkshakes. As espresso, steamed milk, and toffee nuts combine with other sugary ingredients, it will be a huge seller near my house, as it combines bitter, fatty, nutty, and sweet flavors that belong in coffee bars all over the country.

12- Hot Honey Cortado

Many Miami residents (where it is popular in the U.S.) and Spaniards missing the proper pour at home were relieved when Starbucks finally dropped a truly legit cut in 2025. Starbucks offers two types of Cortado, including vegan varieties. If you do not care about that, honeybees have created this concoction, this elixir of paradise, this bromide for your brain, this Cortado for your cortex… Yes, this is something people are going to order if it is at the same level as the two other Cortados already on the menu.

The Starbucks Reserve Espresso is just a bonus, even as good as those select blends are. Since I love both components, combining them is a no-brainer for me.