March 1, 2021
photo: Soby’s New South Cuisine
Greenville, South Carolina, residents know where to get their banana dessert fix: Soby’s New South Cuisine has been serving a white chocolate banana cream pie since the restaurant opened in 1997. Chef Rodney Freidank, a member of the original Soby’s team and now the corporate chef of the city’s Table 301 restaurant group, swears by it. “It’s been Soby’s signature dessert since day one,” he says, and for National Banana Cream Pie Day on March 2nd, you can make it at home.
Soby’s take features a tart shell that Freidank describes as “sugary and crisp, made to mimic the vanilla wafers in banana pudding,” and a white chocolate pastry cream with fresh bananas and whipped cream folded in makes the filling. “Banana cream pie is already amazing,” Freidank says. “This is just a way of kicking it up and adding complexity to the flavor.”