The best pancakes in Los Angeles

Fran Camaj and chef-partner Travis Lett have created what may be the quintessential LA restaurant on Abbot Kinney, complete with reclaimed barn wood, brick floors and a knockout back patio. At breakfast and brunch, they feature some of the city’s most sumptuous pancakes. Gjelina’s lemon buckwheat ricotta pancakes ($13) involve three fluffy cakes folded with lemon zest and pockets of ricotta. On top, you’ll find a tangy, cooling dollop of crème fraîche, plump blueberries, sweet-tart syrup made from blueberry compote and maple syrup, and a light dusting of powdered sugar. Dig in.

Chef Neal Fraser and wife/partner Amy Knoll Fraser nail breakfast at their modern Mid-City café, BLD. The eatery (who's name, in case you didn't know, stands for Breakfast Lunch Dinner) serves three meals daily to diners in a space with wood tables, an abstract tree branch and stone art feature, along with wraparound sidewalk seating. Stopping in for breakfast? BLD's ricotta blueberry pancakes ($15) are simultaneously substantial and fluffy thanks to yeast raising and folds of fluffy cheese. The two-cake short stack comes with Berkshire maple syrup in a small log cabin container—it's so darling that it arrives without the cap, so that the cabin isn't sneaked into somebody’s purse.

Glen Ishii and business partner Caroline Shin carry on a family tradition in Little Tokyo that spans more than seven decades. Now Jist Café resides next to the East West Players theatre and features a dining room with reclaimed wood walls and a shaded, brick-walled back patio with historic stone flooring. For breakfast, there are plenty of pancake options to choose from, but the TCHO chocolate chip and banana pancakes ($12) are the best. Ishii blends batter with crème fraîche to form the airy backbone, while bittersweet chocolate coins from TCHO (a Berkeley-based chocolate company) join sliced bananas and house-made whipped cream atop three cakes.

Chris Phelps and Zak Walters have moved their sustainable, constantly evolving culinary wonderland to a new Hollywood location. Brunch is currently only available on the weekends and changes based on what’s seasonal and available, but the Oatmeal Griddle Cakes ($10) are a constant. The stack arrives as a trio, with crispy edges still smoky from the griddle. They’re crafted with a mixture of oatmeal, butter, sugar and eggs, and come dusted with powdered sugar. Instead of being doused with syrup, these griddle cakes come topped with a dollop of molasses butter, which melts to form a de facto syrup. Phelps’ mom started making oatmeal griddle cakes for him starting at age two, and they’re still going strong.

This La Brea cafe from chef Karen Hatfield and husband Quinn has earned a dedicated following at breakfast and lunch thanks to its seasonal California comfort food, a packed pastry counter and a fashionable space that includes brick walls, exposed wood rafters and an umbrella lined patio. If you can make it here for breakfast or brunch, the buttermilk rye pancakes ($11) are a true breakfast treat. Each fluffy cake is created with eggs, butter, flour, baking powder, a little sugar and vanilla, salt, buttermilk and rye, and comes with salted butter and maple syrup.

Weekday pancakes are available at The Larder at Tavern thanks to divine intervention. Chef-owner Suzanne Goin’s grandmother had a family friend who was a priest. He used to visit her Los Feliz home for breakfast, and shared his favorite pancake recipe. Goin grew up eating Priests Pancakes ($12) and now serves them in the Brentwood eatery she owns with Caroline Styne. The pancakes may not look unique, but they’re exquisite. Goin melts butter and separates eggs before whipping in the whites with milk to make the cakes—five to an order— extra fluffy. Served with a pitcher of Vermont maple syrup and soft butter, they're the perfect way to start your weekend morning—or any morning, for that matter.