Why Coconut Cake Is Having a Renaissance

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Why Coconut Cake Is Having a RenaissanceFlorence Sullivan

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As the unstoppable trend machine cycles through our national archive of old-fashioned sweetmeats, we’ve enjoyed a reprisal of flamboyant bananas Foster, torched baked Alaska, well-coiffed lemon meringue pie, and even prune whip. But the biggest comeback story of the moment might be one particular downy, creamy cloud of a dessert: the coconut cake.

Like many of this country’s cakes, the coconut is a part of America’s vast Black culinary legacy. It was developed by enslaved people, whose knowledge of the fruit had been handed down by their African ancestors. “I would say it’s Southern,” says cookbook author Nicole A. Taylor. She surmises that you would have been likely to find it originally in port cities, by way of Atlantic trade routes.

Photo credit: Florence Sullivan

Ina Garten’s coconut cake, which is covered in cream cheese icing and shredded coconut, is available to ship nationwide from Goldbelly.

Photo credit: Florence Sullivan

Chef Harold Moore’s coconut layer cake is a must
a Café Commerce on the Upper East Side. You can also order one at chefmoore.com.

Ironically, the American responsible for making the coconut cake a contemporary Christmas staple is from Syracuse, New York: Tom Cruise. The actor’s confection of choice was developed in 1983 in Los Angeles, when Doan’s Bakery opened its doors with a lineup that included a drupaceous Bundt cake studded with white chocolate, swiped with cream cheese frosting, and sprinkled with coconut flakes. ­Twenty-five years later Cruise began sending it to friends every December. When some of his celeb pals started gabbing about it on the talk show circuit in the 2010s, the dessert—and its recipients’ bragging rights—became a meme. (Whether the Doan’s version constitutes a proper coconut cake remains up for debate.)

The mania seems to have less to do with Cruise than with the popularity of coconut cake itself. It’s been turning up in restaurants across New York City, which tends to be a bellwether for trends, and it has become more accessible nationally. In Charleston, Peninsula Grill at Planters Inn and Benne’s both serve coconut cakes that can be shipped to your door. Ditto Sugaree’s Bakery in New Albany, Mississippi. Even Ina Garten can overnight a large-format take on her coconut cupcakes.

Photo credit: Florence Sullivan

Sugaree’s in New Albany, MS, offers this butter-glazed coconut cake with divinity icing in the shop or for delivery via Goldbelly.

Photo credit: Florence Sullivan

The five-layer coconut cake from the Polo Bar in NYC which is also available at RL restaurant in Chicago, is among T&C’s favorites.

Meanwhile, in Manhattan the Polo Bar’s five-layer job with cream cheese frosting (also available at its Chicago sibling, RL restaurant) has been charming customers since 2015, and when Harold Moore opened Café Commerce on the Upper East Side in 2025, he brought along his sour cream–based spectacle, which is filled with coconut pudding. (NB: It too will travel.)

Last fall, when Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson opened Wild Cherry in the West Village, pastry chef Michelle Palazzo came up with a head-turning five-story coconut cake filled with coconut diplomat cream and hidden channels of pineapple compote.

“I’m seeing the revival of a lot of desserts from the 1950s and ’60s,” says pastry chef Caroline Schiff, whose Monday Diner will open this summer in Brooklyn. Her updated version of the OG is “served in square portions that can only be described as massive.” Aside from the shape, she hasn’t veered far from the traditional template. “Coconut cake isn’t about reinvention,” says Moore. “It’s about returning to something that’s always worked.”

This story appears in the April 2026 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW

With Polo Bar cake, Buccellati Tahiti sterling silver dessert fork ($360 per utensil), scullyandscully.com. With Sugaree’s cake, Christofle Malmaison Riviera dessert plate ($140), christofle.com; The Perfect Nothing Catalog one-of-a-kind fork ($500 per set), thefutureperfect.com. With Café Commerce cake, Dior Maison Tulipes plate ($260), 800-929-DIOR; Georg Jensen sterling silver Blossom fork ($1,200), kneenandco.com. With Ina Garten cake, Ginori 1735 Diva dessert plate ($105), ginori1735.com; Capdeco Diana Horn stainless steel fork ($152 for 5), scullyandscully.com

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