Best of Boston

Bacon fans and omelet groupies, take a knee: This one’s for Pancake Nation. A Main Street storefront café that’s more about warmth than polish, Sugar Magnolia’s flips buttermilk and blueberry flapjacks as big as Paul Bunyan’s mittens and just as thick. But it’s the moist, delicately spicy carrot cake version—aided by a genius three-in-one spread of maple syrup, cream cheese, and butter—that verges on the stuff of legend. (Those who absolutely have to get their protein fix won’t feel left out: Sugar Magnolia’s has a worthy roster of egg-, meat-, and fish-based breakfasts, too.)