Nashville’s dessert landscape has both the deeply traditional and the thoroughly Instagrammed, and the best answer depends on which you’re seeking. The most honest version of this question has a short list of genuine standouts rather than an exhaustive survey of every pastry case in the city.
Chess Pie at Arnold’s Country Kitchen
Arnold’s Country Kitchen at 605 8th Ave S earned a James Beard American Classics Award in 2009. The chess pie is the dessert that regulars mention when they talk about why Arnold’s matters beyond the roast beef. Chess pie is a Southern custard pie built from sugar, butter, eggs, and a small amount of flour. Done poorly it tastes like a sugar delivery vehicle. Arnold’s version has the balance right: sweet without being cloying, with the slight cornmeal variation some Nashville versions use. It’s the dessert a genuine Nashville food culture produced before anyone was thinking about Instagram.
Banana Pudding at Peg Leg Porker
Carey Bringle’s Peg Leg Porker at 903 Gleaves St in The Gulch has cooked at the James Beard House twice. The dry-rub ribs are the reason people go. The banana pudding is the reason people talk about going back. Thick, cold, with proper vanilla wafer texture throughout rather than the soggy version that plagues inferior banana puddings. It’s the kind of dessert that functions as a palate cleaner after cayenne-heavy barbecue and succeeds at that specific job.
The Bonuts at Biscuit Love
The Bonuts at Biscuit Love are fried biscuit dough topped with lemon curd mascarpone and blueberry compote. The name (biscuit donut) telegraphs the concept. The execution is better than the wordplay: the fried dough has the crunch that separates a good Bonut from a soggy one, and the lemon mascarpone provides the acid that keeps the dish from tipping into pure sweetness. Available at all Biscuit Love locations, which makes it the most accessible dessert on this list.
Goo Goo Cluster
This is technically candy rather than restaurant dessert, but the Goo Goo Shop at 116 3rd Ave S (a renovated flagship opened 2014, expanded 2021) lets you make your own Goo Goo at an in-store kiosk, which turns it into an experience rather than a purchase. The standard Goo Goo is marshmallow nougat, caramel, peanuts, and milk chocolate. It’s been produced in Nashville since 1912 and is the literal first combination candy bar ever made. If you leave Nashville with one food item, it might as well be this one.
Five Daughters Bakery
Five Daughters Bakery made its name with 100-layer doughnuts, which are croissant-dough doughnuts rather than traditional fried dough. They’re extraordinarily photogenic and they’re good. The Instagram relevance is earned rather than purely manufactured; the pastry technique is real. Multiple Nashville locations mean access is easy.
The Short Version
For something traditional: chess pie at Arnold’s. For something that tastes like the best version of a Nashville staple: banana pudding at Peg Leg Porker. For something that captures modern Nashville brunch culture: Bonuts at Biscuit Love. For something that is Nashville’s specific contribution to American confection: a Goo Goo Cluster from the source.
Sources
- Arnold’s Country Kitchen, James Beard American Classics Award 2009
- Peg Leg Porker, peglegporker.com; James Beard House dinners via restaurant history
- Biscuit Love, biscuitlovebrand.com
- Goo Goo Cluster, googoo.com; Standard Candy Company history
- Five Daughters Bakery, fivedaughtersbakery.com; Nashville Lifestyles coverage