WINNER: This is the best soup in metro Atlanta

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A good bowl of hot soup is perfect all year, but it’s especially satisfying now that the temperatures are falling.

“Soup” is such a small word for such a big dish that can be prepared myriad ways. Beef, chicken, tofu or seafood can be thrown in — or left out if you’re vegetarian. The base can be broth or cream. Soup can be served with a chunk of bread or in a bread bowl.

The top three winners are unchanged from last year, but we’ll start with the tie for fifth place.

The Chicken Soup at Pancho’s Mexican Restaurant in DeKalb and Tortilla Soup at Agavero Cantina in Gwinnett shared that spot.

In fourth place was Muss & Turner’s Yesterday’s Soup, which turns leftovers into a delectable mishmash.

Third place again this year was the Butternut Squash Soup at Seed Kitchen & Bar. You’ve had butternut squash soup before, AJC food editor Ligaya Figueras pointed out, “but what makes Seed’s version stand out is the dramatic presentation: drizzles of white maple crema and dark pumpkin oil written with the calligraphic flourish of a spoon stroke, then capped with a mound of crunchy, toasted pepitas.”

Repeating in second place was the Great Matzo Ball Soup at General Muir in Atlanta. Chef Todd Ginsberg’s version of matzoh ball soup has “a deeply golden broth studded with a fine brunoise of carrot and celery and one fat matzoh ball, creamy in the way of a Southern cornbread dressing,” Jenny Turknett wrote for the AJC.

Taking the crown yet again was My Dad’s Turkey Chili at Souper Jenny, which received a third of the votes.

My Dad’s Turkey Chili is “a marriage of beans, peppers, brown sugar and other ingredients that deliver the perfect combination of sweet and heat,” Becca Godwin wrote.

Owner Jenny Levison’s dad jokes he never gave her the recipe, but the patriarch of the family gave her the recipe in 1996 after she returned from an international sojourn with a bunch of soup recipes.