Brunch at Nicolau Lisboa — & Away We Went

Jeremy's rating: ★★★★★

Hands down the best pancake I ever had. Covered in berries, mascarpone, and honey, it truly put the cake in pancake. If I could eat one every day for the rest of my life, I would have no complaints about anything ever again.

Jen's rating: ★★★★★

Dreamy, pastel interiors, delightful avocado toast, smack-me-in-the-face-I-can't-believe-it's-this-delicious pancakes, and more demands a visit when in Lisbon. If you don't get the pancakes you're an idiot (or just allergic, apologies).

Being New Yorkers we couldn't help but indulge ourselves in brunch while in Lisbon. Well, technically we intended it to be breakfast, but sleeping through alarm clocks and trying to defeat jet lag made it just a little bit difficult.

In Lisbon, there's no shortage of restaurants with at least a 4/5 star rating which makes it hard for indecisive people like us to settle on a place, but seeing all the photos of the mint colored tables and dreamy Pinterest-worthy interiors locked Nicolau in for me.

We arrived around 11:00 AM to beat the 12:00 PM crowd and managed to score a table outdoors. I chose to order the avocado toast since I was curious how it would be prepared on the other side of the Atlantic; let me tell you, it was spectacular.

Avocado Toast will always be insanely photogenic no matter how it's prepared; why is this?

Similarly to the states, they drizzle the avocado with chili flakes ... but then they also squeeze in a bit of lemon which made my eyes flutter. I also couldn't resist their vanilla chia pudding with granola; I've never tried chia seeds before so I was QUITE the risk tasker, obviously. Consensus? I need more in my life ASAP, please.

But all in all, Jeremy trumped me a million times over with his choice of pancake with raspberries and marscapone. I'm barely exaggerating when I say I fell out of my chair with a single bite, which Jeremy so graciously shared with me. Trust me, it was so good I would've kept it all to myself (sorry, dude).

Back home, the best pancakes to me are drowned in syrup. Here, you wouldn't dare. This pancake is legit cake-like and the levels of fluff are beyond your wildest imagination. I wish there was a click-and-taste feature through the interwebs for reviews like this. Google, are you listening out there? Get on it, stat.