Any Cafe, Sapporo

As part of our series of the best pancake restaurants in Sapporo, we present this review of Any Cafe, in Sapporo.

Sometimes you’re just in the mood for a nice breakfast.  Sapporo has a number of good restaurants for breakfast, and more specifically, Sapporo has several restaurants that can compete for the best pancakes in Japan.  While foreigners might not associate pancakes with Japan, the Japanese have their own unique style of fluffy, soft pancakes.

Any Cafe is in Kita ku; very easy to get there.  You can take the Namboku Line to Kita Ku’s Kitajuhachijo Station.  From the station you walk north up the street, and Any Cafe is on your right.

Sapporo’s Any Cafe offers a truly high-end experience.  The menu is limited, but artfully done; offering pancakes all day long, and an experience as elegant as anything I have had in Sapporo.

Let’s talk about the food:

Pancakes so light they almost collapse when you cut into them. Each bite of they plain pancakes was remarkable. I ate more than I should have, almost surprised with each bite.

Any Cafe has a brief, very focused menu.  They offer their specialty souffle pancakes, then the same pancakes with chocolate, then a seasonal pancake (one time the special was based on pumpkin; the next time it was based on a sweet potato option called Murasaki ), and then the very savory croque monsieur inspired pancake.

There is also a limited offering of deserts.  When the pumpkin pancake was offered, there was also a pumpkin cheese cake (with a Japanese maple leaf on it for decoration), and a pudding (served inside of a pumpkin).

While pancakes serve as a filling breakfast or lunch, there is a cafe-vibe, completely with a selection of drinks; juice, tea, coffee, and they offer a rather beautifully-served latte.

Like most places in Sapporo, this restaurant is primarily intended to serve a local, Japanese clientele.  The menu, and the service, is in Japanese.

On my first visit, I wanted to try a few different items on the menu (in part, so I would be able to offer a more complete set of examples for this review).  We ordered the regular and the chocolate pancakes, but I assumed the croque monsieur would be the actual French sandwich. My Japanese (even after all these years) is pretty terrible, and I misunderstood…

We ended up with three plates of pancakes, they would barely fit on the tabletop.  On my second visit, despite the fact that I still can’t read the menu, I knew what to expect.  I ordered the croque monsieur pancakes again, this time with more intention, and was very satisfied when they arrived.

Let’s take a look at those chocolate pancakes, though…

Beautiful, aren’t they?

The chocolate pancakes help illustrate what to expect from a visit to Any Cafe.  At a regular restaurant, chocolate pancakes might be on the “kids menu.”  Typical chocolate pancakes from a “diner” would have chocolate chips or might have “store-bought” chocolate syrup poured over them.  An Any Cafe, you can see this is a more “mature” chocolate pancake; the flavor comes from coco powder.

While much of the flavor at Any Cafe is sweet, the experience is sophisticated, and the style is cool and modern.  Lots of wood, beautiful old worn, wood floors, and a warm atmosphere.

It is part of Japanese culture that pancakes eclipse breakfast, and can be the focus of the meal, or the restaurant.

In fact, it’s hard to find a pancake store in Sapporo that is open before 10 AM.  And then, the experience often seems designed for women – like a fine English tea house; it’s sweet food, desert, and drinks.

Any Cafe seems to be staffed by women, and most of the customer are as well.

These “sweet shops” in Japan seem to mostly be for women. Women with their friends. A young mother and her daughter (and they ate the desert first). A chance to share some special food and drink, and to socialize.

You might also think Any Cafe is a good restaurant for a date in Sappor0 – and you’d be right.  If you want some place “cool,” there may be other choices.  But for a date, Any Cafe is cozy, quiet, and soft.  Even with the grey walls, it’s very girly.

Music was soft alternate rock.  I didn’t hear Indigo Girls, but I might have.

On our most recent trip, the menu outside was in Japanese.  But on a previous trip, the menu told an abbreviated story, and in English: Pancake(s), Pudding, Cheesecake, and Latte.

Any Cafe would definitely make the list of the best pancakes in Sapporo.  For another option, we can easily recommend JS Pancakes at Sapporo Station.