The spring issue of San Diego Dining Out magazine splashed a picture of pancakes on its cover so tantalizing it’s almost cruel. Stacked six high and dripping with cherries, the golden brown flapjacks sear into your brain like a song that you can’t shake out of your head. While not invincible to the power that food images have on my appetite, this one worked brazenly fast in sending me to the griddle of origin.

Richard Walker’s Pancake House arrived downtown a year ago via the Chicago burbs. The namesake owner grew up in a family of restaurateurs, prompting him to eventually open two pancake joints in Illinois before setting his sights on San Diego. Condominium towers hover above, and you’re greeted inside by a mélange of granite, marble and stained wood forming clean lines that hearken to the early architectural style of Frank Lloyd Wright.

The kitchen sends out some dramatic surprises that you won’t find at IHOP or Denny’s, beginning squarely with any of the baked pancakes, which are cooked to a monstrous puff at 400 degrees in a German Blodgett oven. The batter recipe dates back to 1958, when Walker’s father and uncle read in a James Beard column about a restaurant in Portland that made the best pancakes in the country. The men contacted the owner (a Swedish guy), who gave the Walkers the recipe, which they began using in their pancake houses in Illinois.

From this batter, which is heavy in eggs and contains powdered sugar and a touch of nutmeg, they create the widly famous apple pancake. My companion and I rejoiced over the concoction – the size of bathroom sinks and inflated with hot air that escaped climactically through their brownish crevices once they were served. I agreed wholly with Walker when he later said, “It’s wise to get at least one of these for the table.”

The German Pancake is crater-shaped with high sides. It’s served with lemon wedges and powdered sugar that form a delectable, sweet glaze when they hit the heated surface. So in other words, don’t ruin it with syrup. The apple hotcake looked like a brain on helium, an unsettling impression that turned glorious once we bit into its super-light texture and tart Granny Smith apple wedges. The fruit is sautéed in clarified butter before being added to the batter – and it goes supremely well with deep-tasting, high-quality cinnamon from Saigon that is sprinkled in.

Among the other baked pancake choices are Cinnamon-Pecan and the Dutch Harvest filled with fresh broccoli, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms and Havarti cheese imported from Denmark.

Omelets are also formidable in size. They’re made with four eggs and come with a choice of three traditional pancakes or toast. Passing on these (our waistlines told us to), we chose the Santa Fe, packed with wilted onions, raw jalapenos, fresh cilantro and a mild white cheese sauce that stayed creamy throughout the duration. You’ll need at least two sets of jaws at the table to polish it off.

Corned beef is ground on site for creating breakfast hash. The consistency was perfect, with that delectable, hard-to-find balance between mulched and chunky. We ordered it extra crispy without regret. And the accompanying eggs were cooked over-medium just as we had specified.

The menu also features waffles, smoked ham and eggs, and crêpes filled with various fruit – or in the case of spinach crêpes, they’re stuffed with onions, diced mushrooms and aged cheddar and topped with Hollandaise sauce. Lunch fare is limited to old-fashioned Chicken Ribble Soup from the recipe box of Walker’s great-grandmother, plus classic Caesar Salad and a BLT using thick Hormel bacon that’s scored along the sides so that it doesn’t curl in the cooking process.

Where there are pancakes, there are lines. Ropes and signage mark the spot on the front sidewalk where you pony up to land a table. Turnover is moderately brisk due to efficient wait service and a fairly ample seating capacity that includes a decently sized patio. From the moment you take your first sip of fresh-squeezed orange juice or catch a glimpse of what’s being consumed around you, the most important meal of the day quickly becomes brunch.