Sunday Brunch at Mestizo

The birthday celebrations continued over the weekend and on Sunday, I was taken to brunch by one of my best friends. Mexican food at Mestizo! We’d been saving trying this restaurant for an occasion and this was a good excuse to try their Sunday brunch buffet – only £20 per person! Booking in advance is advised.

Mestizo is located at a funny spot – very close to Euston station but very much feeling like a neighbourhood restaurant what with all the residential buildings around. Anyway, we arrived that Sunday to a very large spread of rather nice things to eat.

Two gigantic containers of aguas frescas sat at one corner next to desserts and while we could go up to help ourselves, our waitress insisted on bringing over a jug of what we preferred most of the two – horchata (the other was tamarindo). I have a bad feeling I drank a lot of horchata, thus limiting my available eating space!

I started with chips and salsa and a taco al pastor. Those homemade salsas were fresh and spicy and zingy and excellent on chips and tacos.

I loved the sweetness from the pineapple with the grilled pork in my taco. Tacos, quesadillas and egg dishes are made by a man watching over a giant hot plate. Orders are placed with him (there’s a list of available fillings behind him) and he’ll call you over again when it’s ready to pick up. Then you go to town with the taco toppings (top left photo in the first batch of 4 in this post).

From the hot buffet, we tried a bit of everything. Here’s my plate with (roughly clockwise from 10 o’clock) a green chile chicken enchilada, a dried pork dish, stewed beef, chicken in a cream sauce, rice and beans, a tamal with beans, and an empanada with peppers and cheese. The stewed dishes were alright but I loved the simplicity of their beans and their enchilada was excellent. The tamal was delicious but oh so heavy.

Two soups were available that day and both were new to us, thus both requiring sampling. Pozole was a very mild soup with giant corn kernels …

… and menudo was tripe-based and the more tasty of the two. I like how soups can also be topped with various ingredients to one’s taste.

There was another taco and a few more chips. And then another taco. I think my favourite things to eat there are their tacos.

We had to stop with the savouries to make room for desserts (our waiter insisted that we try them!). Homemade ice creams (that week they had rosemary and strawberry) were intensely creamy and full of flavour.

Their eggy flan casero was flavoured with orange and was delicious but by that point, we were truly struggling!

It was a great brunch with a very good varied spread of typical and not so typical Mexican dishes and as it wasn’t too busy that day, they were fine with us lingering past the two hour limit (they have two seatings: one at 12:00 and the other at 14:00). It’s fun, it’s casual and is ideal for large groups. Thanks for the lovely brunch, Roxanne!

Mestizo
103 Hampstead Road
London NW1 3EL