The Best And Worst Dishes At The Cheesecake Factory

Chain restaurants have long enticed diners to journey down under, get out in the neighborhood, and lean into that Friday feeling. The 2000s saw the golden age of these types of chains — like Chili's, Applebees, Red Lobster, and Outback Steakhouse — offer a plethora of easily accessible and wallet-friendly meals. The Cheesecake Factory was just one of these eateries, known for providing decadent desserts, along with pastas, salads, steaks (and more) on its menu. And, although some of these restaurant chains have succumbed to younger generations' distaste for such establishments, The Cheesecake Factory is hanging on. 

If you find yourself hankering for a bit of nostalgia and end up at a location of The Cheesecake Factory, you may want to think carefully about your food choices. Heavy, nutritionally-lacking dishes abound on the chain's multi-page menu, sometimes disguised as healthy options. And even if a rich and filling meal is what you're looking for, you may find that these dishes have too many big flavors to be enjoyed, resulting in some confusing bites. However, the chain also has some good options. If you need a bit of guidance in what to pick for lunch or dinner, here are six of the best and six of the worst dishes (in terms of health and taste) on The Cheesecake Factory menu.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that a salad with the words "barbeque" and "ranch" in its name isn't the most nutritious. What may be a shock, though, is just how much calories and fat this item contains. In fact, of all of the salads on The Cheesecake Factory menu, the Barbeque Ranch Chicken Salad is the worst offender in these categories, containing 1,980 calories and 124 grams of fat (including 23 grams of saturated fat), as well as 2,710 milligrams of sodium. For reference, the average adult's daily intake of sodium should be around 2,300 milligrams. 

The only place this salad may be a winner is in terms of its protein content, as it contains about 62 grams. The daily recommended protein intake is recommended to be around 0.36 grams per pound of body weight. So, if you weigh 165 pounds, you should be eating about 60 grams of protein each day, according to The Mayo Clinic.

As for its ingredients, this salad contains slices of avocado, diced tomato, grilled corn, black beans, cucumber, and Romaine lettuce tossed with a barbecue ranch dressing. The whole thing is then topped off with crispy fried onion strings. The resulting overall flavor isn't great. The competing flavors of sweet barbecue, ranch, sweet corn, tomatoes, and fried onions make this dish feel heavy and odd.

If you like nachos, you're probably aware that the dish isn't known as a health food. A meal of fried tortilla chips, meat, cheese, beans, sour cream, guacamole (and sometimes an additional cheese sauce) is going to be on the heavier side. So, you may see The Cheesecake Factory's Ahi Poke Nachos — which are made with tuna — and think they're going to be healthier due to the inclusion of healthy tuna. But you'd be incorrect. 

Ahi tuna is the healthiest part of this dish. A 3-ounce portion of Ahi tuna sits at about 109 calories with 24 grams of protein. However, that's where the accolades stop. A pile of crispy fried wontons form the base for these nachos, getting things off to a fried and salty start. From there, the nachos are drizzled with a sriracha aioli. They're garnished with spicy jalapeños and green onions, which offer nothing significant in terms of nutrition. The plate of nachos clocks in around 1,030 calories, which in the nacho world doesn't seem terrible. But the sky-high sodium content is the real issue here. These ahi tuna tacos contain about 2,340 milligrams of sodium, which is over the total daily recommended intake.

For taste, the beautiful, cool Ahi tuna is lost here, thanks to the heavy aioli and fried wontons. The avocado could be a saving grace in the recipe, were it not for the other mishmash of flavors.

If you're looking to order something fried from The Cheesecake Factory's menu, you're probably already aware that what you're looking for won't be the most nutritious. But some fried food options may still seem like they're better than others. For example, if you saw The Cheesecake Factory's Fried Shrimp Platter and chose to order it over a fried chicken platter, you may have the impression that you're doing yourself a favor. After all, shrimp is low in calories but high in antioxidants like astaxanthin (a component of algae that helps protect against inflammation, according to Healthline). Unfortunately, once you batter and deep fry said shrimp, those benefits are slightly overshadowed by some nutritional drawbacks.

The Cheesecake Factory's Fried Shrimp Platter has 1,920 calories, 104 grams of fat, and 3,140 milligrams of sodium, which makes it pretty heavy. It's even worse when you consider that the Fried Shrimp Platter comes with French fries and coleslaw. Although it's not a ton of food — it comes with maybe nine shrimp and a small handful of fries — these sides make for an overly salty, fatty-tasting meal you should either share among the whole table or skip completely.

In an entry that should surprise no one, the Bacon-Bacon Cheeseburger is probably one of the worst things you can order — nutrition-wise — from The Cheesecake Factory's menu. With 1,680 calories and 116 grams of saturated fat, this hefty sandwich has nearly three times the calories of a Big Mac from your local McDonald's. A Big Mac, for reference, clocks in at 590 calories, from its two beef patties, sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, and sesame seed bun.

The Bacon-Bacon Cheeseburger features a charbroiled burger patty covered in melted cheddar and American cheeses. It's then topped with two types of bacon: crispy bacon, as well as thick-cut slow-roasted smoked bacon. It's also made with a secret sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. Of all the burgers on The Cheesecake Factory menu, the Bacon-Bacon Cheeseburger is the most missable, due to its greasy and over-the-top recipe.

Even the French dip cheeseburger — which features a charbroiled cheeseburger on a brioche roll with grilled onions, sriracha mayonnaise, and au jus — is 1,620 calories. This is not far off from the Bacon-Bacon Cheeseburger, but it's still not as overly-filling. The Bacon-Bacon Cheeseburger should give extra pause due to its high amount of bacon, as this protein is especially high in saturated fat and cholesterol — which should be consumed in moderation due to their connection with heart disease.

A menu item called "Chicken Bellagio" may sound fancy, so we're naturally drawn to it. And it has everything that a restaurant chain dish should have: a creamy sauce, a giant piece of chicken, the addition of a pork product for some reason, and a mound of pasta. This dish sounds like it should be topping out the menu at other Italian restaurant chains, like Brio Italian Grille, Olive Garden, or Macaroni Grill, but it's nestled into the specialties section at The Cheesecake Factory. But this plate contains 2,020 calories, 116 grams of fat, 4,230 milligrams of sodium (almost double the daily recommended amount), and 395 milligrams of cholesterol. So it's a doozy, and might be better shared — or not ordered at all. 

So, what is it, actually? The Chicken Bellagio starts off with basil pasta — we're assuming this is meant to be a nod to pesto — topped with a parmesan cream sauce. Then, a deep-fried chicken breast is perched atop the noodles and crowned with prosciutto. For good measure, The Cheesecake Factory adds arugula on top. Unfortunately, the overall taste is not great. The competing flavors in the Chicken Bellagio make it a confusing mess. Plus, the cream sauce is overtly rich, covering up any delicate herb notes from the pasta. The prosciutto is just salty, and does nothing, really, for the dish. 

If you've thrown caution to the wind and want the absolute richest, most decadent, calorie-laden cheesecake on The Cheesecake Factory's menu, then order the Ultimate Red Velvet Cheesecake. One slice is 1,580 calories — and, when you look at the overall makeup of this cake — it makes sense. Instead of a graham cracker crust and a filling, this red velvet version is actually a mashup of the two desserts: cheesecake and red velvet cake.

The cake alternates layers of rich red velvet cake with original cheesecake for a multi-tiered creation. The whole thing is then covered in a cream cheese frosting and further topped with white chocolate. With 122 grams of sugar (the daily recommendation is about 25 grams, according to The American Heart Association) and 350 grams of cholesterol, the red velvet cheesecake is the worst offender of this fast-casual restaurant's desserts. Since it's so heavy, the best way to consume this cake would be to share it amongst the table. In terms of taste, it's also overly rich and cloyingly sweet. There's simply not enough tang from the cream cheese frosting to help dilute the sugar-on-sugar mouthfeel you'll get from this.