After a host of successful pop ups and stalls at festivals, Patricia Trijbits has finally found a permanent home from which to sell her buttermilk pancakes and Dutch Babies (I’ll get to them in a bit) and it’s all rather lovely.
Her restaurant is part of a new development on Southwark Street called Flat Iron Square which, once fully open, will see a whole host of bars and restaurants (and a Sunday flea market) take over the disused railway arches.
The dining room is really beautiful; like a mini Spring. It’s all pink and peach and light wood. Three air conditioning vents hang from the ceiling with plants drooping down besides fancy filament light bulbs making an attractive feature of something otherwise ugly.
Our visit was for breakfast so it seemed appropriate to go for a stack of buttermilk pancakes with streaky bacon, blueberries and maple syrup (£9.50). The pancakes, made with buckwheat flour, are totally lush; soft, fluffy and not at all stodgy.
A ham, cheese and tomato pancake sandwich (£11) came with a glass of vinegar crisps which were twangy as. It had all the flavours of a ham and cheese toastie just with the added bonus of those pancakes – really lovely stuff.
Corn fritters, creme fraiche, preserved lemon and avocado (£11) named ‘Australian’ was the healthy option with the preserved lemon proving a great companion for the avocado. It was the sort of dish you’d see at Granger & Co which is no bad thing.
On a separate visit (where we dined as guests of the restaurant) a full fry up with a side of pancakes (£12) was a solid caff favourite but it was the Dutch Baby, an oven baked pancake served in a cast iron dish which rises at the sides like a Yorkshire pudding, that was the standout. Filled with bramley and cox apples, blackberries and sprinkled with almonds, it was a hearty little number. Definitely a wow dish.
Currently Where the Pancakes Are is only open for breakfast and lunch but that will soon extend to dinner, which is rather worrying as I could quite easily visit 3 times a day. It’s one of those places that doesn’t do anything too crazy or ridiculous, just decent food served by nice people.
Would we go back? Yes.