Best Biscuits in the World You Must Try

Best biscuits in the world are more than just snacks — they are a reflection of culture, history, and taste across different countries. Biscuits are one of the few foods that turn a country’s identity into a single shelf-stable object. Buy a pack of speculoos and you're in Belgium for ten minutes; bite into an alfajor and you're in Argentina; open a tin of shortbread and you're somewhere in the Scottish Highlands at half past four.

Best Biscuits in the World by Country

Belgium — Lotus Biscoff (Speculoos)

The caramelised speculoos biscuit is Belgium’s edible export to the world. The original Lotus Biscoff is dark, lightly spiced (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves), and just the right size to sit on the saucer of a coffee cup. Belgians eat them year-round, but they originated as a St Nicholas Day biscuit in early December.

The original Lotus Biscoff is globally recognised and often served with coffee. You can learn more about the history of speculoos on Wikipedia.

Italy — Cantucci and Amaretti

Italy has two competing claims. Cantucci (also called biscotti) are the hard, twice-baked almond biscuits from Tuscany, eaten dipped into vin santo dessert wine. Amaretti are the chewy almond-and-egg-white biscuits from the Piedmont region — soft amaretti from Saronno, hard amaretti from Sassello. Both are unmistakably Italian and both keep extraordinarily well.

India — Parle-G and Britannia Marie Gold

India is the world's largest biscuit market by volume. Parle-G is the cheap, sweet, glucose biscuit that almost every Indian child grew up dunking in tea — it appears in advertising as a symbol of childhood the way no other biscuit anywhere does. Britannia Marie Gold is the more refined alternative, a sweet, light, golden biscuit closely tied to Indian tea culture.

United Kingdom — McVitie's Chocolate Digestive

Every poll of Britain's favourite biscuit returns the same answer: the chocolate digestive. McVitie's makes the original (1925), but Cadbury, Sainsbury's, and Tesco all sell respectable own-brand versions. The trick is to bite from the chocolate side. For a deeper look at the rest of the British biscuit aisle, see our guide to UK biscuit brands.

Scotland — Walkers Shortbread Fingers

Pure butter shortbread, baked in Aberlour since 1898. The red tartan packaging is unchanged for decades because it doesn't need to change. If you can find a tin of Walkers' Highland Shortbread (slightly thicker than the standard fingers), it is the gold standard of the genre.

France — Madeleines and Galettes

The Madeleine is technically a small sponge cake, but it lives in the biscuit aisle and is treated as one. Shell-shaped, lemon-scented, and dipped in tea. The galette bretonne is its harder, butterier cousin from Brittany — a dense pure-butter biscuit you can stand a thumbnail on.

Germany — Lebkuchen and Bahlsen Leibniz

Two very different things, both German classics. Lebkuchen is the soft, honey-spice gingerbread biscuit traditionally sold at Christmas markets in Nuremberg — closer to a cake than a biscuit, but always called Lebkuchen. The Bahlsen Leibniz is the everyday year-round German butter biscuit: rectangular, with 52 little teeth around the edge, since 1892.

Argentina — Havanna Alfajor

The alfajor is two soft, slightly cakey biscuits sandwiching a thick layer of dulce de leche, rolled in coconut or coated in dark or white chocolate. Argentina takes alfajores extremely seriously — Havanna is the benchmark national brand, but every region has its own variation. They are now exported across the Americas and starting to land in Europe.

Australia — Arnott's Tim Tam

Two chocolate biscuits with chocolate cream filling, then enrobed in chocolate. Created by Arnott's in 1964 and named after a horse that won the Kentucky Derby that year. Australians do "Tim Tam slams" — biting opposite corners off a Tim Tam, dunking it in hot tea, and using the whole biscuit as a straw until the chocolate softens. Try it once.

Sweden — Pepparkakor

Thin, dark, heavily spiced ginger biscuits — closer to a thinner crunchier German lebkuchen — eaten especially around Christmas with glögg (mulled wine). Anna's Pepparkakor and IKEA's own-brand version are the easiest to find outside Sweden.

Spain — Polvorones

Crumbly almond-and-flour biscuits, dusted heavily in icing sugar, traditionally eaten at Christmas in Andalucía. The texture is so fragile they are sold each individually wrapped, and the unwrapping ritual is part of the eating.

Switzerland — Kambly Bretzeli

Kambly is the Swiss biscuit benchmark — Bretzeli, Florentines, Matterhorn — all made in Trubschachen since 1910. Swiss biscuit-making leans heavily into butter content and ultra-fine texture; nothing on a Kambly shelf feels mass-produced.

Japan — Pocky and Bourbon Alfort

Pocky (Glico) is the slim biscuit stick coated on most of its length in chocolate, with a clean section to hold. Alfort (Bourbon, the Japanese company) is a small, square chocolate biscuit with a galleon stamped in chocolate. Japanese biscuits tend to be lighter, drier, and more textural than European ones — a different aesthetic, equally serious.

United States — Oreo

The world's best-selling cookie, and the cookie that has decisively crossed every major market. Two chocolate wafers with a vanilla cream filling. The original 1912 design has been adjusted only marginally in over a century. Oreo's flexibility (mint, peanut butter, golden, regional limited editions) is part of why it has lasted so long.

South Africa — Bakers Tennis Biscuits and Romany Creams

Tennis is a coconut shortbread biscuit, sold rectangular in long sleeves, eaten with cheese (yes, cheese — South Africans are firm on this). Romany Creams are coconut chocolate sandwich biscuits and South Africa's all-time bestseller. Both are produced by Bakers, a Pioneer Foods subsidiary.

Philippines — SkyFlakes and Lemon Square

SkyFlakes is the slightly salty cracker that is on every Filipino household table. Lemon Square is the brand behind a huge range of softer Pinoy biscuits, including the Cheese Cake bar that defines a generation of school lunchboxes.

How to actually try them

Many of these biscuits are still difficult to find outside their home countries — the bigger names (Lotus, McVitie's, Oreo, Tim Tam, Parle-G) travel well; the regional ones (Havanna, Kambly, Lemon Square, Bakers, Crawford's, Tunnock's) often don't. Biscuit Brand exists to close that gap. Explore biscuits on Biscuit Brand to find sellers who specialise in the country you want, or jump to our best biscuit brands guide for a buyer's-eye view of the brands behind these products.

And if "biscuit" itself still means something different to you depending on where you grew up, our simple guide to what a biscuit actually is covers the British/American naming split that confuses almost everyone.