The best pancake place in Lisbon!

Hello, everybody!

Today I’m writing about something that thrills me a lot. If you read the short description about me on this website’s home page, you saw that I never say no to a pancake date.

I would love to write a post about my top pancake places in Lisbon, since I’ve been to quite a few, but I guess that will have to be after quarantine. Hopefully soon!

This being said, this post will be about one place only, which I consider to be the most underrated pancake place in Lisbon - Timeout didn’t even include it in their Lisbon pancake place list! I present to you: Beni’s Gelato & Friends!

It was my sweet friends Andreia and Pedro who showed me Beni’s for the first time. It does not only make delicious food - crepes, pancakes, waffles & so on - but it also is super budget friendly.

I will start by saying that it isn’t located in an attractive area of Lisbon. It’s in the Arroios market, and this place doesn’t have any touristic attractions, nor is it very pleasant to the eyes in the sense that it is just an old area of the city. However, I think I will consider this the only negative detail about Beni’s. It even is within walking distance from some more interesting parts of the city.

The space itself is quite small - they have some tables on the sidewalk at the restaurant’s door, and about 4 tables inside. However, it was never crowded any time we went there, we always found a nice place to sit.

Beni’s has an extensive pancake menu that ranges from beverages to full-on pancakes with dozens of toppings, including their super tasty homemade ice cream. My favorite part about their menu is that you can customize your dish with whatever and how many toppings you want.

There’s sort of a “path” to build your dish:

1. You start by choosing if you want crepes (2.25 EUR), pancakes (1.25 EUR each) or waffles (2.25 EUR each) - it’s amazing because you are allowed to ask for as many as you want;

2. Then, you have the option to add ice cream for 1.25 EUR a scoop;

3. You can then add a portion of fruit for 1.25 EUR;

4. You can add different liquid toppings for 1 EUR each;

5. Finally, you have other solid toppings such as Oreos, chocolate chips and many others for 0.75 EUR each.

Surprisingly, not many pancake houses have the option to customize your own dish in Lisbon. The majority I’ve been to have a menu of pancakes with toppings already chosen, and sometimes there’s not much flexibility to swap ingredients or exclude them. So, this is one of the main reasons why Beni’s is one of my favorites - and, of course. for their amazing quality.

The only thing I believe it’s missing from their menu are juices made from fresh fruit. Their beverage menu is not very diverse, and most of them are coffee and chocolate drinks. Personally, since the dishes here are already a sugar bomb, I would prefer to have it served with some handmade iced tea or natural juice, so I usually just go for water (I don’t like coffee, so this is also not an option for me).

If you are interested in my personal opinion about what dishes to ask for, my go-to are the pancakes (I usually ask for 1 or 2) with Nutella (basic, again, I know), a scoop of ice cream to make it a bit more fresh and some fruits, usually strawberry or banana. Sometimes I add the white chocolate chips, depending on my sweet-tooth on that day. This is why these photos all look the same ahah, I don’t vary much. Next time I promise I’ll ask for something different.

Anyway, this is the pancake house I would recommend to anyone who’s looking for some nice pancakes in the Lisbon area! Heaven!