It’s not a mystery why pancakes are popular. They are, quite simply, delicious: perfect golden circles with a crunchy halo that counterpoints their pillowy interior, smothered in molten butter, maple syrup or bright, juice-leaking berries.
But these breakfast staples aren’t just selling well in Toronto restaurants — they’re going ultra-viral. Videos of the plate-sized pancakes at Susie’s Rise and Dine, a new, nostalgia-tinted diner on College Street, are racking up a million-plus views.
“We put out probably close to 500 orders, or 1,000 pancakes, per week,” said Susie’s owner Adam Lore. “And we only have 35 seats.”
On Dundas West, Viaggio’s stacked-high tiramisu pancakes pull similar numbers. The blueberry-topped buttermilk pancakes at Mildred’s Temple Kitchen in Liberty Village, one of Toronto’s longest-standing brunch destinations, are used to the attention. “I joke that they’ve been photographed more times than Kim Kardashian,” laughed owner-chef Donna Dooher.
Buzzy Japanese café chain Flipper’s made its name with bouncy, light-as-air kiseki soufflé pancakes so fluffy, they can be eaten with two forks (that’s actually how the table is set). It expanded across Japan and into Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Korea and the U.S., drawing long lines in New York and L.A. On Elm Street, Torontonians are falling for the sky-high stacks topped with fresh fruit or packed with strawberry, chocolate, matcha, red bean, lemon or pistachio cream.
Pancakes are definitely having a moment, but they aren’t exactly a new invention. Humans have been eating pancakes since the Stone Age, when Neolithic peoples blended ground plants or roots with water and cooked the mixture on hot rocks.
About 30,000 years later, restaurant insiders say Toronto’s pancake frenzy speaks to a yearning for nostalgia and comfort in a chaotic, expensive time.
Pancakes as a canvas for creativity
For chefs, the pancake isn’t just a mix of egg, sugar and flour — it can be anything they want it to be. As such, the pancakes popping up now can be sweet, savoury, fried, baked, stuffed, sourdough-based, pulled pork-topped or served as a tasting flight.
“Pancakes are appealing to everyone, but restaurants and chefs are taking what they learned and executing pancakes to the best of their ability,” said Lore.
Cinnamon buns have inspired brunch chefs from west to east: Emma’s Country Kitchen on St. Clair West makes a cinnamon bun pancake the size of a dinner plate, crusted with caramelized brown sugar and whipped brown butter; at Coxwell and Gerrard, Lazy Daisy’s Café draws fans of its dark brown swirled version with cream cheese drizzle.
At L’Avenue in the Well, you can sample a selection of pancakes served on a tea tray and flavoured with earthy matcha, lemony blueberry, and hazelnut. While at 416 Short Turn at Queen and Bathurst, you’ll find the simply named Large Pancake categorized under “sweets.” It is, as advertised, a very large, ultra-fluffy pancake with a cube of cultured butter melting on top.
The blueberry-topped pancakes at Mildred’s are canon in Toronto — Dooher has been selling out of them for 18 years. More recently, she’s expanded to savoury versions, like semolina pancakes with fresh corn, pulled pork and a little bit of sour cream and chili crunch. “They fly,” said Dooher.
Viaggio’s pancakes channel tiramisu: they’re stuffed with mascarpone, drizzled with espresso syrup and served as a dessert. While chef-owner Jon Vettraino created the dish at the now-shuttered Queen West restaurant The Commodore, the Viaggio version took some trial and error to perfect, he said. “What kind of fat do we want to cook it in? What pan works best — stainless? Cast iron? I separate our eggs and whip the whites now, like a meringue.” He found the mascarpone mousse would slide off a hot pancake, so they troubleshot. Now, they pipe it tableside.
As the pancakes spread across Instagram (someone even posted a watercolour painting of them), copycat restaurant dishes followed. But so did customers. “People show up here during the day, when we don’t offer the dessert, expecting pancakes,” said Vettraino. “It’s such a driving force for people to come in and check this place out.”
The Instagram effect
Tritely, towering stacks with gilded crust and gooey toppings are just very photogenic. “Pancakes are incredibly visual,” said Lore.
Gateau Ghost’s sourdough pancakes, baked and served with whipped maple butter and hazelnut maple syrup, are delicious in their own right but they’re also a branding exercise. The restaurant’s emblem, a little ghost, is seared into the top of each stack. Instagram loves it.
“When people first started coming in and taking photos I thought, ‘Is the food going to get cold?’” said Jayden Park, chef-owner of the College Street bakery and restaurant. “I’m used to it now. It’s part of the experience. It’s free marketing.”
There were other learning curves too. They work with sourdough starter, which takes two days to prepare and means they can’t just whip up more batches on the fly.
“We can’t always keep up with the volume,” said Park. “People come in just for the pancake. We ran out a few times and people were so disappointed.”
At a time when restaurant margins are slim, that social currency can make or break a business.
People come to Susie’s for the pancake, which is double stack, topped with lemon zest and burnt honey maple syrup, but Lore has trained his team to suggest customers share it. That nudges them to also try the other dishes on the menu, which more deeply explore Lore and co-owners Tyler Tanabe and Matthew Chow’s Japanese and Chinese heritage.
While Viaggio’s menu does also flex Vettraino’s expertise in Italian pastas and pizzas, he acknowledges it’s funny that this is what he’s become famous for. “It doesn’t offend me,” he said. “If I go down known for my pancakes, I’m fine with that.”
In fact, their popularity has been a lifesaver for Viaggio, which opened just before the pandemic. “I think without this dessert, the restaurant might have failed,” said Vettraino. “I owe a lot to the pancake.”
A plate of nostalgia
At a time when the world is chaotic, this order is comforting and cosy. “Pancakes are just so familiar,” said Lore. “Everyone has their own memory attached to them.”
“Every Sunday growing up, my father would give my mother a break and he made pancakes for us,” said Dooher. “They were not particularly great pancakes, they came out of a box, but there was theatre to them.”
When Mildred’s opened in a nascent Liberty Village, it helped catapult Toronto from a lunch city to a brunch city. “At the time, an avocado was an exotic item,” Dooher said. Almost two decades later, “people revolve their weekend around brunch. I get on the streetcar, people talk about brunch. I go to the bank, people talk about brunch.”
The rising cost of living, headline dread and extreme weather events are stressful. Brunch is not. And while dinner can cost three figures, the brunch price tag is easier to digest, even at the city’s hottest restaurants. “There’s this huge wave of people realizing that they’re seeking joy when they go out to eat — they don’t want that stuffiness,” Lore said.
“People don’t need more stress,” said Dooher. “They need pancakes.”
