Cheesecake Factory's Best Pasta Dish Outshines Its Chicken Bellagio And Pasta Da Vinci

The Cheesecake Factory exudes maximalism, both through its quirky Victorian-Egyptian aesthetic and colossal menu. So, when we embarked on a mission to taste and rank Cheesecake Factory pastas, we had plenty of options. The chain's basil-forward Chicken Bellagio and Madeira wine-coated Pasta Da Vinci are well-known favorites (they placed second and third in our ranking, respectively), but our top choice, the Louisiana Chicken Pasta, comes with a kick.

This medley of bowtie noodles and veggies, tossed in a spicy New Orleans sauce and topped with parmesan-crusted chicken, garnered our favor in a few ways. For one thing, we liked how well-seasoned the creamy sauce was and how beautifully it coated each noodle. The parmesan-crusted chicken, though, was the real standout, thanks to its super-crunchy exterior and moist interior that lent the dish a pleasing texture. Every element had superb flavor, but the chicken in this dish, in particular, was better than any other meat we tried.

We aren't alone in our enthusiasm. Customers order this chain restaurant pasta dish on repeat, as evidenced by the multiple fans who highlighted it in a Reddit thread about their favorite C.F. meals. In a separate Reddit thread about this standout, a former employee shared that "the secret is in the Cajun butter" melted into the sauce; unfortunately, they never learned how the kitchen prepares this ingredient.

Some fans may recognize Louisiana Chicken Pasta's central protein from a popular Cheesecake Factory secret menu hack: the Louisiana Chicken Caesar Salad. You won't find this variant inside the restaurant's spiral-bound menu, though for a brief time in 2022, customers could order it via DoorDash. Instead, you have to order the regular Caesar salad — composed of lettuce, parmesan, croutons, and Caesar dressing — and request that it come topped with this spicy, crunchy mainstay.

This hack began as a TikTok trend, but it's now a dish Cheesecake Factory employees highly recommend. When YouTube creator and former C.F. employee Anali sampled their favorite dishes from the chain in a 2025 video, they seconded the trend's originator, TikTok creator Alix Traeger, by suggesting that customers top the dish with grilled onions, too. They described the chicken as being perfectly crisp (though they admitted that the protein can be a little tough on occasion), and said that it was at par with some of the best Caesar salads they've every tried.

Salad aside, the original Louisiana Chicken Pasta also gets employees' love. As one Reddit user explained, "It was one of my favorite dishes to cook when I worked at the CCF and I still have the recipe for it." The first ingredient they named? Cajun butter. While the restaurant hasn't revealed how it makes this concoction, stirring some Cajun spice mix into a bit of softened butter should create a decent dupe.