San Diego's Best Breakfast: Richard Walker's Pancake House

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The delightful scent of pancake batter floods my nostrils as I push through the heavy glass door of Richard Walker's Pancake House in Downtown San Diego.

Crowded as usual, I patiently wait while a server slows his pace to offer me a bright smile and seat me at one of the two tables still open.

The cozy interior is flushed with warm colors - enormous lamps hang overhead inflected with specks of amber, while the mosaic glass panels stained in different shades of orange adorn the high end of one wall. On another wall, newspaper cuttings brimming with praise from the Union-Tribune, San Diego Magazine, and the San Diego Business Journal stare down at me from their gleaming frames. "The Pinnacle of Pancakes," reports one accolade, displaying an enticing picture of a fluffy stack of hotcakes dripping with syrup.

I hastily settle on Walker's Apple Pancake, the top house specialty and by far the most popular item. Even after all the hype, I could not help but be impressed upon the arrival of the twelve inch pancake, buried under a mountain of baked apples and cinnamon.

The thickness of the pancake belies the light airiness of the dough, which is very moist and tastes faintly eggy. Fresh Granny Smith apple slices tumble atop the pancake, providing a delightful element of tartness to counter the generous sprinkling of sugar and Saigon cinnamon (finest in the world) that lends the concoction its distinctive fragrance.

Of course, Richard Walker's reputation as the pancake authority in town doesn't end with Walker's Apple Pancake. What sets Walker pancakes apart is the use of different batters for waffles, flap jacks, crepes, and pancakes, rather than a generic batter that comes in different shapes and sizes. The Individual batters create a unique flavor for each item that starts at the dough, not the topping.

The Blueberry Flap Jacks, for instance, turn out to have a tea green hue because wild Maine blueberries are strained into the batter; the pancakes are then served with a side of blueberry compote and whipped, salted butter. Likewise, the Buckwheat Cakes, Wheat Germ Cakes, and Potato Cakes (made with a dash of onion!) all require different ingredients and processes, offering the promise of an unparalleled variety of pancake selections.

Halfway into wolfing down my entire apple pancake, owner Richard Walker steps in to join me. Walker succeeds a long line of restaurant entrepreneurs. His family opened their first restaurant in 1948, and both Walker's father and brother currently own pancake houses in Illinois. Walker, who owns two other pancake houses in Chicago, claims his business is modeled after his family's tried and true techniques of running a restaurant.

Being able to take risks, he asserts, is key to reaching any goal. "Risks don't freak me out," says Walker, "When I made the move out to San Diego, nobody knew me in this town. I just had to make sure I served better food than anyone else, had superior service, and kept a great attitude."

To this end, he flew his entire staff from Chicago to work at the San Diego branch to ensure the smooth running of his latest venture. Walker attributes successful customer service to his two "phenomenal" managers, and his own hands-on approach to training his servers. "Because I am a focused and intense person, I want my servers to be the same - they have to be slightly high strung, making rounds every couple of minutes to attend to every customer's smallest requests. I never let anyone wait over a minute to be greeted and served."

As for his other mantra of serving higher quality food, Walker emphasizes the use of clarified butter instead of oil in his kitchen. Clarified butter is the top layer of golden oil that floats above melted butter to make an exceptionally rich and buttery cooking oil. Furthermore, Richard Walker's coffee, voted the "Gold Cup," by the Reader's Choice Awards, is an in-house blend of prime roasted coffee beans brewed so carefully it takes 60 seconds from the whole bean to cup, making it the "freshest coffee you've ever had," boasts Walker.

Sipping my own cup of coffee, I have to agree that the coffee's mild flavor doesn't carry a trace of the sourness stale coffees tend to have. The pancakes, on the other hand, are a collection of some of the most mind-blowing breakfast foods in San Diego. Asked to name his favorite pancake, Walker replies "Whatever I'm eating at the time, they're all unique and wonderful in their own way."

Visit Richard Walker's Pancake House for more information.