Pancakehouse Upstairs — Restaurant in Amsterdam

If I only had one word to describe this restaurant I would use cozy. It is advertised as the smallest restaurant in Europe and I honestly believe that is true. There is a little bit of magic inside as it takes luck and a little bit of physical effort to get seated.

First you have to find it, as it is located on the first floor (2nd floor for my fellow Americans) and to access it you have to find the nearly hidden doorway. If you manage to find the door, you open it to see nearly vertical stairs that are better described as a ladder than stairs. Once upstairs you find yourself in a beautifully decorated room with teapots interwoven with lights across the ceiling and a fantastic view of the bustling streets below. It is a unique experience I haven't had anywhere else.

The tricky part is getting seated as there are only three tables! That's right, only three! And the hosts let you stay pretty much as long as you want, so if you don't have to wait then you are one of the lucky ones. As of right now it is still fairly low-key so you should be able to find a spot rather quickly.

The food even managed to surprise me. I am not really a 'pancake person' but these dishes aren't your average American pancakes. They are best described as large crepes that are thicker than normal and then a large amount of filling plopped into the middle. You can get fresh fruit with sweet cream cheese filling or hit up your more savory side with a wife variety of options to choose from. One dish is enough to fill you up easy! Plus it is on the less expensive side for Amsterdam.

For photo opportunities I would recommend ordering their single serving tea pot. Really fits the vibe of the place and is a cute prop to take pictures with!

Needless to say that it has left the best impressions! Hospitable hosts, unique atmosphere, delicious dishes, and wonderful dessert. I recommend to everyone! I would like to come back here...

Thought it was just okay despite the hype. It’s cool to visit a place featured in an Anthony Bourdain episode but it ends there. I thought our sweet one was too sweet (Anthony Bourdain also said so in his episode about a different sweet pancake he got) and the savory was unbalanced. We were hungry but couldn’t even finish the pancakes because they were just too much. I also didn’t feel great after eating these. Cool to try but I can’t say I’ll ever be back. It’s just not worth the hype?

In preparation for the restaurant response of why I didn’t raise any issues/concerns while I was there (because that’s the typical restaurant response, not specific to this place but in general). The reason is: what would be the point? Obviously as polite humans, you tell any wait staff the dining experience was great/fine and just move on from there. Everyone has done that because… well, what would even happen if you told the truth on the spot? Are they gonna comp the entire meal or make you something different? I didn’t want either of those outcomes because they deserve to be paid even if I didn’t like it (plus I appreciated trying something new) & if I didn’t like it, I don’t want anything else on the menu. It’s purely a mismatch in taste and clearly others are huge fans so this review is just my honest opinion.

Cute decor inside. Really tight stairs to go up/down. Reservations only (and only by phone) but if a table leaves early then you will get seated. We only spent 30 minutes here and another party was able to take our spot. Cash only - maybe some form of debit but not all. I’d just stick with cash to make it easier...

Fantastic option for Dutch pancakes! The (I assume) owners were incredible and took great care of us. We all originally ordered 3 pancakes to share, but wanted to try some of their others so we asked for 2 more sweet ones. They were kind enough to bring us 2 pancakes with 2 flavors on each so we could, technically, try 4 more pancakes. They were SO GOOD. The one making the pancakes was super sweet and asked us our favorites and wanted our opinions on what they made. They even offered us more butter and told us how to eat them to get the best flavors. Our favorites were the butter and sugar (put syrup on it that’s on the table), the apple bacon and cheese (also add syrup), and the banana cinnamon. *the restaurant is very small (4 tables) but the service is great. We called to get a reservation the day prior for our group of three with no problems, but people did stop in to make them while we were there. We were also 7 minutes late to our reservation and they were still able to seat us - don’t rely on that to happen though, I think we...