English brunch arrived in 1895. The Mexican version got there at least three thousand years earlier — Aztec markets in Tenochtitlán were already serving warm tortillas with eggs, beans and chilli before the Spanish ever stepped onto the boats. Saturday and Sunday at Frida Camden, the kitchen leans into that older tradition. Heavier on the chilli, lighter on the apology, served from 11am.
A different shape of brunch
English brunch is a compromise meal. It bridges late breakfast and early lunch with the same calm dishes — eggs benedict, smashed avocado, a flat white. Mexican brunch is louder. It assumes you sat down hungry, woke up curious, and don't mind the heat first thing.
The structure is different too. A typical Mexican almuerzo isn't built around a single plate — it spreads. There's a salsa or two on the table before the eggs arrive. There's a basket of warm tortillas. There's a pot of beans. There's coffee or chocolate or atole. The food keeps coming in small waves rather than landing on one plate, and the meal lasts an hour rather than twenty minutes.
That's the version we serve at the weekend. Not exactly Mexico City brunch — we're in Camden, and the bacon goes through a different supplier — but close enough that the rhythm is right.
Chilaquiles — the dish that decides the morning
If you order one thing on a weekend morning at Frida, order this. Chilaquiles are tortilla chips simmered briefly in salsa — verde if you want green, roja if you want red, never both — until the chips soften but don't go to mush. They get topped with a fried egg or two, crumbled fresh cheese (queso fresco), thinly sliced avocado, sour cream, and a few rings of pickled red onion.
The whole thing is a balance of textures: the chips have to bend without disintegrating, the salsa has to be just hot enough to wake you up, and the egg yolk has to break across the top. The window between perfect and soggy is about three minutes wide. We bring them out fast, and we keep saying it from the kitchen door: eat now.
Huevos rancheros — the country breakfast
If chilaquiles are the urban brunch, huevos rancheros are the country one. Two corn tortillas, lightly fried until they crisp at the edge but stay soft in the middle. Two eggs on top, fried with the yolks still loose. A ranch-style salsa — tomato, onion, garlic, chilli — ladled across the eggs while everything's hot. Black beans on the side, sometimes with a drizzle of sour cream.
The dish has a specific identity in Mexico: it's what farmers ate after the morning's first round of work. The eggs are robust. The salsa wakes you up. The tortillas keep you going until lunch. We serve ours with a small basket of extra tortillas because the salsa always demands them.
The breakfast burrito
Burritos are northern Mexican food — Sonora and Chihuahua territory, where flour tortillas (made with wheat, not corn) outnumber the southern style. The breakfast burrito is the heaviest thing on our weekend menu. Scrambled eggs, chorizo (Mexican-style, soft and crumbly, not the cured Spanish kind), refried black beans, Monterey Jack cheese, all rolled into a flour tortilla and griddled briefly so the outside crisps.
It's also the most defensible hangover cure on the menu, which is information we offer without judgement.
"The Mexican breakfast assumes you sat down hungry. It does not pretend you're going to be careful."
Vegetarian and vegan, properly
Mexican cooking is vegetarian-friendly by tradition more than design. Beans, corn, squash, cactus paddles (nopales), eggs, avocado, fresh and roasted chillies — most of the building blocks were here long before meat was a daily option. We lean into that on the brunch menu.
The vegetarian plate combines grilled nopales (cactus paddle, lightly char-griddled until tender), refried beans, scrambled eggs, queso fresco and a stack of warm corn tortillas. For vegans, the same plate without eggs and cheese, with extra avocado and a portion of black beans cooked with onion and epazote (a herb that takes some getting used to, in the best way).
If you'd rather the English-leaning option, our pancakes come with cajeta — Mexican goat's milk caramel, slightly sharper and more interesting than regular caramel. They're not on the Mexican-tradition shortlist but they're popular enough that we keep them year-round.
The drinks
A Mexican brunch needs a different drink than an English one. We pour four:
Michelada. Beer, lime juice, tomato juice or Clamato, hot sauce, salt rim, sometimes Worcestershire. Drunk cold, slowly, with chilaquiles. The drink that built Mexican brunch.
Mimosa. Orange juice and prosecco, freshly squeezed, no shortcuts. The English crossover, but the orange juice has to be made that morning. Bottled OJ in a mimosa is a small heartbreak.
Frozen strawberry margarita. Yes, frozen — at brunch we permit ourselves the slushie. We don't shake them this way the rest of the time, but on a Saturday morning the frost works. Lighter on the alcohol, heavier on the strawberry.
Horchata. Non-alcoholic. Rice, milk, cinnamon, sugar, blended cold and served over ice. Tastes like cold rice pudding and is somehow exactly what you want at noon.
The older tradition behind it
Mexican brunch isn't an English-import idea retrofitted with chilli. It traces back to indigenous breakfast practices that Spanish chroniclers recorded in the sixteenth century — chillies, corn tortillas, beans, eggs, hot chocolate, all on the same table at the same time of morning. The Aztec marketplace in Tenochtitlán sold breakfast tamales and atole at dawn. The structure of a Mexican almuerzo — small plates, several at a time, lasting an hour — is older than the English brunch as a concept by about three centuries.
What we're doing on a Camden Saturday isn't reinvention. It's keeping a long tradition alive on the wrong side of an ocean.
When to come
We serve brunch on Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 4pm. Saturdays are easier — walk-ins are welcome at opening, and after about 2pm the second wave of tables opens up as the morning crowd clears. Sundays are harder. The room fills by midday, and a Sunday booking from late September onwards is competitive.
If you can plan ahead, book your Sunday table two weeks out. If you can't, come at opening — 11am is the calmest hour of the weekend. After 1pm on a Sunday, the room is fuller and the wait can run twenty minutes. By 3pm, the second wave clears and there's usually a table again.
For takeaway
Mexican brunch travels unevenly. Chilaquiles arrive soggy after twenty minutes in a delivery bag — we don't recommend them off-site, and the kitchen will tell you so if you order them through a delivery platform. Huevos rancheros, the breakfast burrito and the vegan plate hold up well — the dish components are sturdier and the salsa stays separate from the bread. Drinks (the michelada, the frozen margarita, the mimosa) are dine-in only. Horchata travels in a sealed bottle if you ask, and we'll add ice on the side.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between Mexican brunch and English brunch?
Mexican brunch is heavier on chilli, eggs and tortillas; English brunch is heavier on bacon, toast and avocado. Mexican brunch is also typically built as a spread of small dishes (chilaquiles, beans, salsa, tortillas, eggs, fruit) rather than one large plate. The Mexican version traces back to indigenous almuerzo traditions that predate Spanish contact.
Is Mexican brunch always spicy?
Not always — and the heat is on the side, not in the dish. Salsas at a Mexican breakfast table are usually offered as condiments so each diner can dial the chilli themselves. Our chilaquiles can be made with a mild green tomatillo salsa or a punchier red chipotle salsa; we'll always ask, and we'll always have a third option on the table for those who want it hotter.
Do you serve a vegetarian breakfast?
Yes. Our vegetarian plate (eggs, refried beans, grilled cactus paddles, queso fresco, tortillas) is on the weekend menu, and we have a vegan version without eggs or cheese. Many traditional Mexican breakfast components — beans, tortillas, salsa, fruit — are vegetarian by default.
How early should I book Sunday brunch?
Two weeks ahead is comfortable. From late September through to the new year, Sunday brunch books out about ten days in advance. Saturday is more forgiving — walk-ins are usually accommodated at opening (11am) or after 2pm.
Can I order a frozen margarita any time of day?
At brunch yes — frozen strawberry margaritas are part of the weekend morning menu. The rest of the time we serve our house margarita on the rocks only. The frozen version is a different drink with a different purpose, and the morning sunshine seems to be the right context for it.
Save your table
Frida Camden, 40 Camden High Street, London NW1 0JH. Between Mornington Crescent and Camden Town tube. Brunch served Saturdays and Sundays 11am–4pm. Book a table online or call us on +44 207 383 3733.
