We found the best banana pudding in Atlanta
Where can you find the best banana pudding in Atlanta? We started with some of our favorites, asked our readers to weigh in, then brought five finalists back to the AJC for a blind taste test.
This was our biggest tasting panel yet: 19 AJC staffers and local food experts, five banana puddings and, eventually, one pretty clear winner.
The surprise? The best banana pudding wasn’t even among our original semifinalists.
How did we choose the banana pudding semifinalists?
We started by doing what food editors do: talking about all the banana puddings around town that we love. Then came the less exciting part: logistics.
To be considered for an AJC taste test, a restaurant has to meet three basic requirements: It needs to be inside the Perimeter, open by noon on a weekday and offer takeout or delivery.
There’s a practical reason for that. These taste tests happen during office hours at the AJC’s Midtown newsroom. We need to get every contender to the office in roughly the same window so we can taste them together.
We put our preliminary list through those filters and came up with 12 semifinalists. Then we turned the decision over to our followers on Instagram.
We asked readers to vote for their favorites and tell us what we’d missed.
Community Q BBQ came up in the recommendations, so we added it to the final tasting as a wild card.
We also heard plenty about places we simply couldn’t include. Gene’s, for example, was one of the most popular reader suggestions, but it doesn’t open until 5 p.m. Gunshow also came up in the comments but isn’t open in time for our midday tasting.
So if your favorite banana pudding isn’t here, we’re not necessarily saying it isn’t great. Maybe we just couldn’t get our hands on it.
What makes a great banana pudding?
Banana pudding is a simple dessert: pudding, bananas and vanilla wafers. But three ingredients leave very few places to hide.
The pudding should be creamy and rich without being stiff or cloyingly sweet. There should be enough actual banana flavor that you know what you’re eating even when your spoon doesn’t land on a slice of fruit.
The bananas themselves need to hit a sweet spot. As bananas ripen, their starches turn to sugars and their aroma becomes more pronounced. But go too far and those deeply flavored bananas become soft enough to disappear into the pudding.
And, yes, the vanilla wafers are supposed to get soft.
The cookies absorb moisture from the custard as the pudding sits, turning tender and almost cakelike. You don’t want them to disappear completely, but a crunchy cookie buried in the middle of banana pudding hasn’t been there long enough.
The best banana pudding gives you a little bit of everything in a spoonful: creamy custard, ripe banana and tender vanilla wafer.
Which Atlanta banana puddings made the final taste test?
After the Instagram vote and reader recommendations, we ended up with five finalists:
- Community Q BBQ
- DAS BBQ
- Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q
- Mary Mac’s Tea Room
- Sweet Auburn BBQ
Then we needed people to eat them.
That wasn’t difficult.
How did the AJC taste-test Atlanta banana pudding?
Nineteen people joined us for this one, the most tasters we’ve ever assembled for an AJC Food & Dining taste test.
Along with AJC staffers, our tasting group included members of the ATL50 expert panel: Sam Flemming (aka @punkfoodie.atl), Candy Hom (aka @soupbelly_ATL) and Justin Brown (aka @therealfoodstalker).
We tasted all five banana puddings blind. No restaurant names and no reputations attached. Just, “Which banana pudding would you most want to keep eating?”
Everyone tried all five and then voted for one favorite.
What is the best banana pudding in Atlanta?
Our wild card won the whole thing.
Community Q BBQ received eight of 19 votes, making it the winner of the AJC’s search for the best banana pudding in Atlanta.
Its pudding hit the balance we were looking for: silky without being too thick or too thin, plenty of banana, softened wafers and just enough sweetness. Most importantly, the ratio was right. You could get pudding, banana and wafer together in one spoonful, with no single part taking over.
Sweet Auburn BBQ finished second with four votes. DAS BBQ came in third with three votes, while Mary Mac’s Tea Room and Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q received two votes each.
Community Q wasn’t among our original semifinalists, but ultimately, it’s the best banana pudding we’ve tasted.