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Herbsaint’s banana brown butter tart.

18 New Orleans Restaurants Where Dessert Steals the Show

From Mile High cake to black and gold Doberge, be sure to save room for dessert

by Beth D'Addono Dec 13, 2022, 12:02pm CST

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Herbsaint’s banana brown butter tart.

| Chris Granger/Herbsaint

by Beth D'Addono Dec 13, 2022, 12:02pm CST

Pastry chefs are sometimes the unsung heroes of the restaurant world. In New Orleans, there’s no shortage of amazing pastry chefs that deserve top billing at their restaurants, turning out everything from humble hand pies to baked Alaska and bananas Foster.

At each restaurant listed here, diners are guaranteed to have a stellar sweet or a fabulous dessert menu greeting them. From cakes to pavlova and loads of pies, tarts, and brûlées, this list of new and classic restaurants is sure to please every sweet tooth in town.

Please note: These are the best desserts found at restaurants, not bakeries or sweet shops — that guide is here. Have another favorite destination for dessert? Share in the comments or send a tip.

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Brigtsen's Restaurant

Dessert soars at Brigsten’s in Riverbend, where chef Frank Brigtsen excels at elevating comforting home classics, like pecan pie, butterscotch bread pudding, double chocolate cake, and lemon blueberry creme brulee. Many folks consider this the best pecan pie in town, a caramel-sauced wedge topped with freshly whipped cream.

Open in Google Maps

723 Dante St, New Orleans, LA 70118

Visit Website

Brigsten’s pecan pie

Saba

Thanks to Saba sous chef Blair Tiller’s passion for pastry, desserts here surprise at every turn. She incorporates the likes of tahini, pistachio, and seasonal fruits into a rotating menu of treats, like the pistachio baklava, which takes an interesting turn with the addition of citrus and white chocolate. Creamy malabi, a not-too-sweet milk custard, is enhanced with orchid root, rose, and muscadine. Now that’s outside the box.

Open in Google Maps

5757 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70115

Visit Website

Also featured in:

Zasu

James Beard award winner Sue Zemanick delights with every dish on her debut restaurant’s compact menu, and dessert is no different. There are almost always specials, like a chocolate cremeaux with port poached pears, whipped cream, and chocolate cookie crumble, but current items to save room for include a brown sugar tart with marmalade, satsuma, and whipped cream or a chocolate malt semifreddo cookie crumble, hazelnuts, and toasted marshmallow.

Open in Google Maps

127 N Carrollton Ave, New Orleans, LA 70119

Visit Website

Also featured in:

Vessel

Executive chef Amandalynn Picolo oversees a seasonal dessert menu at Vessel with vibrant flavors, textures, and gorgeous platings, making sweets yet another of the reasons to visit this sexy Mid City restaurant and cocktail spot. Ask what flavor the seasonal cheesecake is, then order it.

3835 Iberville St, New Orleans, LA 70119

Bread pudding with berry drizzle from Vessel

Also featured in:

Dakar NOLA

Chef Serigne Mbaye has long seen a confluence between his Senegalese roots and his chosen home New Orleans. At his newly opened Uptown chef’s tasting restaurant Dakar Nola, dessert might be a tribute paid to the Louisiana pecan, with the addition of sweetened millet couscous that becomes even more delicious with ataya (Senegalese tea) flavored ice cream and mint.

Open in Google Maps

3814 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70115

Visit Website

Also featured in:

Commander's Palace

The bread pudding souffle at Commander's Palace takes an iconic New Orleans dessert to the next, creamy level. Finished tableside with warm whiskey cream, the dessert needs to be preordered, so don’t forget. Of course, there’s always a praline parfait or creme brûlée to sweeten the meal.

Open in Google Maps

1403 Washington Ave, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Bread pudding soufflé at Commander’s

Coquette

Coquett’e new pastry chef Kayleigh Buvens does beautifully plated and oh-so-tasty desserts at this Garden District stunner, like a fruit-filled pillow of meringue on a custard-like sauce scattered with sugared flower petals, purple sweet potato and buttermilk chocolate cake, and more ever-changing wonders that compliment chef Mike Stoltzfus’ intriguing Southern menu.

2800 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70115

Visit Website

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Coquette (@coquette_nola)

Also featured in:

Jack Rose

Mile high pie has been synonymous with The Pontchartrain Hotel’s Caribbean Room restaurant for generations. When Jack Rose restaurant took over that space, there was never a nano-second that the famed treat was going away. Smart move — the elaborate three-tiered pie layered with chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream, topped with meringue, and finished with a chocolate drizzle is as much a part of the local landscape as the streetcar that rumbles up St. Charles Avenue in front of the hotel.

Open in Google Maps

2031 St Charles Ave FL 1, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Also featured in:

Herbsaint

Brown butter is, well, better than plain, bringing a nutty, depth of flavor to anything it joins. Which is why the banana brown butter tart at Herbsaint is so revelatory. In step with the restaurant’s contemporary French Southern vibe, executive pastry chef Maggie Scales creates this satisfying treat and other wonders at this flagship for the Link Restaurant Group — visit La Boulangerie, which she co-owns, to channel more goodness.

701 St Charles Ave, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Also featured in:

Lengua Madre

Nostalgia is always an element at Lengua Madre, the always-buzzing restaurant by chef Ana Castro. Her Mexico City childhood memories inform the five-course chef’s tasting menu, which might include a stuffed sweet pepper featuring a rehydrated dried chile candied in light sugar syrup. The seeds are removed, and the chili is filled with a chocolate cremeux and served with a quenelle of orange zest and tonka bean whipped cream. Not going to eat that anywhere else in town.

Open in Google Maps

1245 Constance St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Also featured in:

GW Fins

GW Fins is umami central, and not just for chef Michael Nelson’s pristine seafood. The salty malty dessert is a winner, an ice cream pie made with a pretzel crust, malt ice cream, and caramel whipped cream. Every bite is a symphony of sweet, salty, and savory deliciousness.

808 Bienville St, New Orleans, LA 70112

Visit Website

GW Fin’s famous salty malty ice cream pie.

Also featured in:

Bakery Bar

Dessert at Bakery Bar hinges on the excellent Debbie Does Doberge cake options in flavors like lemon, peanut butter cup, and Saints black and gold. But there’s more to Bakery Bar than cake. Along with an appealing savory menu, creative desserts include a creme brulee informed by candied guajillo chillis and a chocolate creme flan with passion fruit mouse.

Open in Google Maps

1179 Annunciation St, New Orleans, LA

Boozy cinnamon doberge cake from Bakery Bar

Compère Lapin

Compere Lapin, Nina Compton’s first restaurant, will always be a local favorite, with its sun-kissed menu of soulful Caribbean-inspired dishes and ever-changing array of desserts. Options might include a mango creme brulee or a Bolivian chocolate cake served with passion curd. In the land of bread pudding, these sunny flavors are most welcome.

535 Tchoupitoulas St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Passionfruit mousse with chiffon cake and pineapple, currently on Compere Lapin’s dessert menu

Also featured in:

Brennan's

Brennan’s is the birthplace of Bananas Foster, the ever-popular flaming tableside dessert of bananas, rum, and brown sugar served over vanilla ice cream, dessert that also comes with the show. Yes, it’s available for breakfast too.

Open in Google Maps

417 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Antoine's Restaurant

Pecan bread pudding, flaming cafe brulot, baked Alaska. This grand dame, Nola’s oldest operating family-run restaurant, turns out an array of desserts pleasing customers since 1840. Order the baked Alaska first — this cake and ice cream wowzer takes its time to perfection.

713 Saint Louis St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Also featured in:

Tableau

Creme brulee lovers tend to agree. It’s all about the burnt sugar crust, and there’s never enough of it. At Tableau the problem is solved, with the custard swiped across an entire dinner plate, topped with a burnt sugar crust that reaches from edge to edge. Basically, every bite is the good part.

616 St Peter, New Orleans, LA 70116

Visit Website

Also featured in:

Miss River

There are plenty of wows on Alon Shaya’s Miss River menu in the Four Seasons — the whole fried chicken is one place to start that conversation. But at the end of the meal, start with the chocolate doberge cake topped with 23k gold flakes; swanky and very shareable. There’s also baked Alaska for two (or three).

Open in Google Maps

2 Canal St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Miss River (@missrivernola)

Also featured in:

The Country Club

The Country Club dishes a range of experiences, from wild drag brunches to poolside parties. Chef Chris Barbato keeps the focus on modern Southern cuisine, with global influences. Hence, his Basque-style cheesecake, which swaps New York style for this caramelized version, baked at high temp to dish a smooth custard interior, dressed with fresh berries and pine nuts.

Open in Google Maps

634 Louisa St, New Orleans, LA 70117

Visit Website

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Brigtsen's Restaurant

723 Dante St, New Orleans, LA 70118

Dessert soars at Brigsten’s in Riverbend, where chef Frank Brigtsen excels at elevating comforting home classics, like pecan pie, butterscotch bread pudding, double chocolate cake, and lemon blueberry creme brulee. Many folks consider this the best pecan pie in town, a caramel-sauced wedge topped with freshly whipped cream.

Open in Google Maps

723 Dante St, New Orleans, LA 70118

Visit Website

Brigsten’s pecan pie

Saba

5757 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70115

Thanks to Saba sous chef Blair Tiller’s passion for pastry, desserts here surprise at every turn. She incorporates the likes of tahini, pistachio, and seasonal fruits into a rotating menu of treats, like the pistachio baklava, which takes an interesting turn with the addition of citrus and white chocolate. Creamy malabi, a not-too-sweet milk custard, is enhanced with orchid root, rose, and muscadine. Now that’s outside the box.

Open in Google Maps

5757 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70115

Visit Website

Zasu

127 N Carrollton Ave, New Orleans, LA 70119

James Beard award winner Sue Zemanick delights with every dish on her debut restaurant’s compact menu, and dessert is no different. There are almost always specials, like a chocolate cremeaux with port poached pears, whipped cream, and chocolate cookie crumble, but current items to save room for include a brown sugar tart with marmalade, satsuma, and whipped cream or a chocolate malt semifreddo cookie crumble, hazelnuts, and toasted marshmallow.

Open in Google Maps

127 N Carrollton Ave, New Orleans, LA 70119

Visit Website

Vessel

3835 Iberville St, New Orleans, LA 70119

Executive chef Amandalynn Picolo oversees a seasonal dessert menu at Vessel with vibrant flavors, textures, and gorgeous platings, making sweets yet another of the reasons to visit this sexy Mid City restaurant and cocktail spot. Ask what flavor the seasonal cheesecake is, then order it.

3835 Iberville St, New Orleans, LA 70119

Bread pudding with berry drizzle from Vessel

Dakar NOLA

3814 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70115

Chef Serigne Mbaye has long seen a confluence between his Senegalese roots and his chosen home New Orleans. At his newly opened Uptown chef’s tasting restaurant Dakar Nola, dessert might be a tribute paid to the Louisiana pecan, with the addition of sweetened millet couscous that becomes even more delicious with ataya (Senegalese tea) flavored ice cream and mint.

Open in Google Maps

3814 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70115

Visit Website

Commander's Palace

1403 Washington Ave, New Orleans, LA 70130

The bread pudding souffle at Commander's Palace takes an iconic New Orleans dessert to the next, creamy level. Finished tableside with warm whiskey cream, the dessert needs to be preordered, so don’t forget. Of course, there’s always a praline parfait or creme brûlée to sweeten the meal.

Open in Google Maps

1403 Washington Ave, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Bread pudding soufflé at Commander’s

Coquette

2800 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70115

Coquett’e new pastry chef Kayleigh Buvens does beautifully plated and oh-so-tasty desserts at this Garden District stunner, like a fruit-filled pillow of meringue on a custard-like sauce scattered with sugared flower petals, purple sweet potato and buttermilk chocolate cake, and more ever-changing wonders that compliment chef Mike Stoltzfus’ intriguing Southern menu.

2800 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70115

Visit Website

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Coquette (@coquette_nola)

Jack Rose

2031 St Charles Ave FL 1, New Orleans, LA 70130

Mile high pie has been synonymous with The Pontchartrain Hotel’s Caribbean Room restaurant for generations. When Jack Rose restaurant took over that space, there was never a nano-second that the famed treat was going away. Smart move — the elaborate three-tiered pie layered with chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream, topped with meringue, and finished with a chocolate drizzle is as much a part of the local landscape as the streetcar that rumbles up St. Charles Avenue in front of the hotel.

Open in Google Maps

2031 St Charles Ave FL 1, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Herbsaint

701 St Charles Ave, New Orleans, LA 70130

Brown butter is, well, better than plain, bringing a nutty, depth of flavor to anything it joins. Which is why the banana brown butter tart at Herbsaint is so revelatory. In step with the restaurant’s contemporary French Southern vibe, executive pastry chef Maggie Scales creates this satisfying treat and other wonders at this flagship for the Link Restaurant Group — visit La Boulangerie, which she co-owns, to channel more goodness.

701 St Charles Ave, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Lengua Madre

1245 Constance St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Nostalgia is always an element at Lengua Madre, the always-buzzing restaurant by chef Ana Castro. Her Mexico City childhood memories inform the five-course chef’s tasting menu, which might include a stuffed sweet pepper featuring a rehydrated dried chile candied in light sugar syrup. The seeds are removed, and the chili is filled with a chocolate cremeux and served with a quenelle of orange zest and tonka bean whipped cream. Not going to eat that anywhere else in town.

Open in Google Maps

1245 Constance St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

GW Fins

808 Bienville St, New Orleans, LA 70112

GW Fins is umami central, and not just for chef Michael Nelson’s pristine seafood. The salty malty dessert is a winner, an ice cream pie made with a pretzel crust, malt ice cream, and caramel whipped cream. Every bite is a symphony of sweet, salty, and savory deliciousness.

808 Bienville St, New Orleans, LA 70112

Visit Website

GW Fin’s famous salty malty ice cream pie.

Bakery Bar

1179 Annunciation St, New Orleans, LA

Dessert at Bakery Bar hinges on the excellent Debbie Does Doberge cake options in flavors like lemon, peanut butter cup, and Saints black and gold. But there’s more to Bakery Bar than cake. Along with an appealing savory menu, creative desserts include a creme brulee informed by candied guajillo chillis and a chocolate creme flan with passion fruit mouse.

Open in Google Maps

1179 Annunciation St, New Orleans, LA

Boozy cinnamon doberge cake from Bakery Bar

Compère Lapin

535 Tchoupitoulas St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Compere Lapin, Nina Compton’s first restaurant, will always be a local favorite, with its sun-kissed menu of soulful Caribbean-inspired dishes and ever-changing array of desserts. Options might include a mango creme brulee or a Bolivian chocolate cake served with passion curd. In the land of bread pudding, these sunny flavors are most welcome.

535 Tchoupitoulas St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Passionfruit mousse with chiffon cake and pineapple, currently on Compere Lapin’s dessert menu

Brennan's

417 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Brennan’s is the birthplace of Bananas Foster, the ever-popular flaming tableside dessert of bananas, rum, and brown sugar served over vanilla ice cream, dessert that also comes with the show. Yes, it’s available for breakfast too.

Open in Google Maps

417 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Antoine's Restaurant

713 Saint Louis St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Pecan bread pudding, flaming cafe brulot, baked Alaska. This grand dame, Nola’s oldest operating family-run restaurant, turns out an array of desserts pleasing customers since 1840. Order the baked Alaska first — this cake and ice cream wowzer takes its time to perfection.

713 Saint Louis St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

Related Maps

Tableau

616 St Peter, New Orleans, LA 70116

Creme brulee lovers tend to agree. It’s all about the burnt sugar crust, and there’s never enough of it. At Tableau the problem is solved, with the custard swiped across an entire dinner plate, topped with a burnt sugar crust that reaches from edge to edge. Basically, every bite is the good part.

616 St Peter, New Orleans, LA 70116

Visit Website

Miss River

2 Canal St, New Orleans, LA 70130

There are plenty of wows on Alon Shaya’s Miss River menu in the Four Seasons — the whole fried chicken is one place to start that conversation. But at the end of the meal, start with the chocolate doberge cake topped with 23k gold flakes; swanky and very shareable. There’s also baked Alaska for two (or three).

Open in Google Maps

2 Canal St, New Orleans, LA 70130

Visit Website

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Miss River (@missrivernola)

The Country Club

634 Louisa St, New Orleans, LA 70117

The Country Club dishes a range of experiences, from wild drag brunches to poolside parties. Chef Chris Barbato keeps the focus on modern Southern cuisine, with global influences. Hence, his Basque-style cheesecake, which swaps New York style for this caramelized version, baked at high temp to dish a smooth custard interior, dressed with fresh berries and pine nuts.

Open in Google Maps

634 Louisa St, New Orleans, LA 70117

Visit Website

Related Maps