7 Irresistible Chocolate Cakes from Popular Chain Restaurants

Calling all chocolate fans. Are you with me? Now that we’ve gathered around, I want to walk you through some of the best chocolate cakes from chain restaurants. I tested out several options from various national eateries to get a taste of the offerings. Chocolate cake may be a common dessert, but not all slices are created equal. There’s a little something for everyone, based on your chocolate preferences — whether you want decadent, fudgy, and dense cake with lots of frosting or prefer a drier cake with mini chocolate chips to give it texture. 

I’ll walk you through the flavors, textures, presentation, general price points, any sides/add-ins, and what makes the cake so tasty. We’ll enter a world of ganache, creams, sauces, and everything in between. If you’d like to learn more about how I picked the top choices, you can just scroll to the very end to read the methodology slide. We have a choco-lot to get through. Grab your fork and let’s dig in — I mean, let’s begin.

When you want a dessert that doubles as an experience, get the Chili’s molten chocolate cake. Once heated up, this chocolate cake has a liquid molten center that is gooey and delicious. It also comes with vanilla ice cream, a chocolate sauce that turns into a shell once placed over the ice cream, and a caramel drizzle to pour over the top. This dessert has a lot going on and makes for a fun time. It’s a great way to round out your Chili’s date or to share as a family. 

The liquid, moist nature of the molten center helps balance the airiness of the chocolate cake. The molten chocolate is sweet and rich, while the cake is much lighter, drier, and more cocoa-forward. Because the cake itself isn’t too sweet, it allows you to enjoy the other components without turning into a cloying mess. The ice cream acts as a palate cleanser and offers an icy juxtaposition to the warmth of the cake. 

I really enjoyed the combination of everything together: There’s warmth, cold, soft spongy cake, the rich chocolatey center, and the crack of the chocolate shell. The chocolate hardens over the frigid ice cream, offering a captivating, crunchy, creamy experience that contrasts with the soft liquid center of the cake. This isn’t just a dessert, it’s an activity that both kids and adults will thoroughly enjoy.

If you get the chance, dine in at The Old Spaghetti Factory. Its lavish decor, high ceilings, and intricate lights and chairs are truly eye-catching and intriguing. While you’re there, order the chocolate mousse cake to round out your meal. The dessert has three defined layers of cake with dark chocolate mousse and bittersweet fudge. The description mentions that it’s topped with fine chocolate curls, but I didn’t see that on mine.

The cake itself is dense and slightly dry, so the fudgy center adds a delightful moistness and richness. I particularly liked the mini chocolate chips on the exterior of the cake edge, which gives it an alluring look and touch of texture — it’s also one of the best ingredients you can use to upgrade chocolate cake. They’re crunchy to give your teeth something to chew on, yet not as hard as the average-sized choco chip. I received an almost comically minuscule amount of chocolate sauce and caramel sauce on the side, so if you eat at the restaurant, this will likely be a little more liberal or at least plated nicely. 

This is an all-around rich cake with sweetness coming from the mousse and fudge rather than the cake itself. This was the least-expensive option on the list, but it still looks elevated and tastes indulgent.

The chocolate tower is a truly impressive work of art. The six-layer cake is huge, layered with dense chocolate cake and fudgy frosting. It’s served with whipped cream, raspberry sauce, and a scoop of ice cream (which I sadly omitted because I was driving all around town picking up said cakes). The back is coated in frosting rolled in fine cake crumbs, while the top has larger cake pieces pressed into a thick layer of rich frosting. 

This one has the most interesting appearance of the cakes I tried, thanks to its many distinct layers and crumb exterior. This is a newer menu item, so it seems that not all Outback Steakhouse locations have the chocolate tower — and that’s a shame, because it’s incredible. It’s one of the more expensive cakes on this list, but I think the delight is well worth it because of the richness and all the toppings you get; it looks and tastes more extravagant than its price point. You could buy a slice and slowly eat it over three days; it holds up well without drying out.

Each bite is dense, chocolatey, and creamy — it’s sweet but cocoa-y. The whipped cream and a raspberry sauce bring a creamy and fruity profile, respectively, to break up the chocolate overload. I imagine the ice cream only adds to this experience. The towering treat goes beyond your average chocolate cake and was one of my favorite desserts because of its mix of creamy and cakey layers, as well as the added flavors from the toppings. 

If you have room, double up on dessert and try the butter cake. It’s one of the tastiest and most popular dishes you can get from Outback.

Lava cakes seem to be all the rage at chain restaurants, as I tried three of them, and each was vastly different. The Yard House chocolate lava cake is ideal if you want the cocoa to shine the brightest, not to be outdone by cloying sauces. Yard House, known for its enormous beer selection and beer-glass-shaped door handles, should add its cake to the resume. 

The Belgian chocolate cake has a warm, gooey (but not too liquid) ganache center served with a side of vanilla ice cream. The circular Yard House dessert is topped with a dusting of powdered sugar and exactly half of a strawberry. This cake is black as night; it’s such an incredibly dark chocolate, completely different than anything else on this list. The cake itself has virtually no sweetness, but instead has the earthy, mildly bitter profile of cocoa. 

As you eat your way to the center, you’ll find the ganache — which is the secret ingredient to a foolproof lava cake with the best texture. The sweetness of the interior mixed with the cocoa-forward outer portion creates a luxurious result that you simply wouldn’t expect from an eatery renowned for its beer. The price point is perfectly in the middle compared to others on this list, but it looks and tastes opulent — like it would cost at least twice the price at a fine dining establishment. Plus, you get ice cream, so it’s like a double dessert. 

I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea based on the muted sweetness level, but if this is at all appealing to you, then I highly recommend it. It would pair beautifully with a cup of black coffee to round out your evening.

I was most surprised by the Triple Chocolate Meltdown from Applebee’s, because it admittedly didn’t look too impressive. It was sliding around in a too-big to-go container, dripping with chocolate sauce. It seemed mediocre and not too special, but its flavor was richer and more cocoa-y than I could’ve anticipated. The chocolate bundt cake is served warm and has a fudge-filled center; it’s topped with chocolate, white chocolate drizzle, and vanilla ice cream (which I had to skip, but I would’ve loved it).

The Applebee’s cake is very dense and moist, unlike the Chili’s or Old Spaghetti Factory cakes, which are lighter with visible air bubbles. When you take a bite, you can see that it’s thick, almost like it’s compressed, with no airiness in sight. The cake part is not too sweet; the sugar component comes from the fudgy center and exterior chocolate sauces. The Triple Chocolate Meltdown is dense and luxurious with more of a cocoa flavor than I would’ve thought. 

I like the flavor profile because it leaned more into the earthy cocoa territory without being too cloying. If you like a moist chocolate cake with semi-sweet notes, then this is for you. As one of the more affordable options on this list, it turned out to be a great value, with the addition of the ice cream and how luxurious it tasted. There’s a reason this was our No. 1 pick for popular Applebee’s menu items. But this was still a surprise top pick for me.

Despite what you may think, The Cheesecake Factory does indeed sell desserts other than its namesake cheesecakes. I opted for Linda’s fudge cake, which is an incredibly rich layered chocolate cake with thick, decadent chocolate fudge frosting, adding a heaviness to the texture. It’s not an airy cake like Chili’s. This contains fudge layers and then a big gob on top; this component brings a lot of sugary goodness with it, making the cake the sweetest option on this list — so, keep that in mind. 

It’s a large slice and perfect for sharing with your family. It was too big for its britches in the to-go plastic container, as the sticky fudgy top clung to the lid in a gooey heap. This sweet also comes with the signature Cheesecake Factory whipped cream, which lasts overnight in the fridge, so you don’t have to worry about it turning into a gloopy mess as you travel from the restaurant to your home. I liked that the fatty creaminess of the whipped cream offered a new flavor and texture to the dessert. This cake has a rich mouthfeel, as the fudge melts in your mouth to balance out the slightly dry-in-comparison consistency of the cake; the exterior edge of the cake has mini chocolate chips to offer added texture. 

This is the most comparable to the Outback Steakhouse cake with its many visible layers, making it a good option if you don’t have one close to you (although, you don’t get any sauces or ice cream). Outback has a creamier texture and slightly more depth in flavor, but both are overtly chocolatey with many clear layers.

I’ve never stepped foot in a Texas de Brazil in my life, so it was a unique experience visiting the dimly lit restaurant (known for its cuts of meat) only to order chocolate mousse cake to-go. The host double checked, asking if I wanted a whole cake or if it truly was just a slice, a request the chain likely doesn’t get very often. While the eatery has a surprising number of desserts, from Brazilian cheesecake to carrot cake, of course, this is all about chocolate cake. 

Texas de Brazil’s chocolate mousse cake has three layers of dense, moist chocolate cake, one layer of white chocolate mousse, and then one layer of chocolate mousse. The exterior is lightly coated in frosting, certainly thinner than the more heavy-handed options at Outback Steakhouse and The Old Spaghetti Factory. The top has a slight drizzle of white chocolate, and then the bottom edge is lined with finely chopped nuts. 

The mousse component adds a lightness that the other cakes on this list don’t have — it breaks apart the density of the chocolate cake, creating a creamy texture variation and smooth mouthfeel that melts on the tongue. It straddles the line of being mousse or chocolate cake, effectively achieving both. While this is the most expensive slice of cake on this list, it would be a marvelous way to round out an evening of feasting on meats. 

I also found the creamy, cakey combination to be slightly similar (not exact) to the Olive Garden dessert, black tie mousse cake. However, the Brazilian version tasted more elevated overall, despite being $1 and some change more expensive, which is why I ultimately omitted the Olive Garden one from this article.

Although there are likely quite a lot more in existence, I tasted eight different chain restaurants’ chocolate cakes. It took two trips over two different days to acquire the eight to test. And while the flavor is similar (chocolate), the execution of each was quite different. My top factors to get included on this list were the cake’s flavor, texture, presentation, unique qualities, price, and whether the restaurant included any accouterments (sauces, whipped cream, etc.). The only one I omitted was the black tie mousse cake from Olive Garden.

Since I am a food and travel writer, I’ve tried a lot (!!!) of food over the years; I’ve had opera cake at a Michelin star restaurant, and I’ve made five-ingredient vegan chocolate cake in a mug. Due to my background, I understand that people have an array of taste preferences. Because of this, I tend to have a more neutral, level-headed thought process compared to others who are extremely set in their opinions. Therefore, I included options that I thought people may enjoy and included reasons or tasting notes with this in mind. Just because I’m a fan of dark chocolate doesn’t mean that everyone is. Someone might love a light and airy chocolate cake, while someone else prefers a denser, richer one. 

Either way, you’re bound to find one that you like on this list. As a general tip, I would recommend eating these while dining in at the restaurant of choice. Taking them home, while convenient, didn’t have the same ambience, presentation, or execution as you would get at the restaurant.