Pancake Quest - Cherry Reds, Birmingham

One woman’s quest to find the best pancakes in the world

It was a cold and damp Sunday, so what else was there to do except go into Birmingham for breakfast?

I had heard of Cherry Reds for years but never actually been. A city centre café by day and bar by evening, Cherry Reds is well known for its delicious brunch offerings. Including the star of the show, their pancakes.

They do offer vegan pancakes, which I appreciate and will be back to try, but on this day I went for their classic buttermilk stack. Each pancake choice comes as a stack of three, with a variety of toppings. I’m a sucker for sweet and savoury, so I went for the Loaded Pancake Breakfast which comes with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages and maple syrup. I was also tempted by the Blueberry Cheesecake with a smashed vegan cheesecake topping, but that’ll have to wait for another day.

These portions were huge! The pancakes themselves were delicious; light and fluffy with the added tang of buttermilk cutting through the batter. The eggs were silky and buttery, and the bacon was thick and smoky. I always appreciate the syrup coming in a separate jug. I like to add it in small portions so that my bottom pancake doesn’t turn into a swimming syrup-y mess. The sausages were… meh. They weren’t the best sausages and I personally don’t think that they added anything to the breakfast. The portions were generous enough that they weren’t needed, and remained mostly untouched.

I also had a small taste of the Apple Crumble Pancakes, with apple compote, granola crumble and salted caramel sauce. The granola added a nice crunchy texture to the toppings, but the apple compote didn’t taste as homemade as I would have liked. More like the filling in a pre-made apple pie. Tasty, but not delicious enough to elevate these pancakes to the best of all time.

All in all, amazing pancakes and I will be back for more! I’m especially excited to try the vegan ones to see how they compare with the buttermilk. Final rating - 7.5/10!