Menus & Cuisines
Medellin Elite Catering has been setting up weekend and event brunches in Medellín since 2019, for hosts who want a late, unhurried meal with good coffee and something sparkling. We serve brunch in homes, on rooftop terraces, in salones sociales and at fincas, for groups of about 10 up to 150.
Brunch is still a fairly new habit in Colombia, and many of our brunch clients are expats and visitors who miss the weekend ritual from home. We cook the dishes they expect, from eggs Benedict to pancakes, and give them a local accent with arepas, tropical fruit and Colombian coffee.
Our coordinators plan in English and Spanish, so a bridal party, an office team or a group of friends scattered across time zones can organize the whole brunch by email.
Plan your event
We cater four types of brunch: weekend brunches at home, farewell brunches the day after a wedding, brunches for bridal and baby showers, and corporate brunches that replace the usual Friday lunch. Showers are a big share of the work, and our bridal shower catering often builds the whole party around a brunch menu.
Brunch runs on a slower clock than breakfast. Guests arrive over an hour, eat in two or three rounds and stay for coffee, so we plan dishes that hold well in a chafing dish alongside a station that cooks to order.
For 10 to 14 guests we deliver a drop-off brunch ready to set out on your table, and our catering in Laureles handles many of these weekend orders. From 15 guests we can staff it with cooks, servers and a bartender, and handle the setup and the cleanup.
Every brunch buffet balances savory, sweet and Colombian dishes, and most hosts pick two of the three styles. For 40 guests, plan on 4 or 5 savory items, 2 or 3 sweet items and a large fruit platter.
The centerpiece is eggs Benedict served on a small arepa instead of an English muffin, with hollandaise and smoked pork loin or sautéed spinach. Around it we set a frittata of criolla potatoes and chorizo, smoked salmon on rye with capers, a leek and campesino cheese quiche and roasted mushrooms on sourdough.
Buttermilk pancakes with arequipe and banana, brioche French toast with berries and a tray of mini muffins and cinnamon rolls cover the sweet side. Alongside maple syrup we serve a panela syrup with cinnamon and orange peel, which surprises most first-timers.
A Colombian brunch borrows from the country's Sunday tables: tamales antioqueños wrapped in plantain leaves, buñuelos and pandebono warm from the oven and arepas de chócolo with quesito. For a Bogotá touch we add changua, a gentle soup of milk, egg and cilantro served with toasted bread, which local guests recognize at once.
A live station is a cook at a griddle making food to order in front of guests, and at brunch it is the part people remember. We run three: an omelet station, an arepa griddle and a waffle station, each added alongside the buffet.
The omelet station offers 8 to 10 fillings, including ham, mushrooms, spinach, peppers, tomato, cebolla larga, campesino cheese and mozzarella, and cooks each omelet in about 2 minutes. One cook serves roughly 40 guests an hour, so a brunch for 100 needs two pans running or a second station.
At the arepa griddle, arepas are split and filled straight off the heat with quesito, hogao or shredded beef. The waffle station makes Belgian-style waffles in about 4 minutes each, finished with whipped cream, berries, arequipe or chocolate hazelnut spread.
Each station needs a 2 m table and one standard outlet for the induction plate or waffle irons. Outdoors, it goes under cover from April to May and October to November, when Medellín's rainy seasons bring sudden late-morning showers.
A juice bar serves fresh tropical juices, and a mimosa bar adds sparkling wine so guests can mix their own. Both use Colombian fruit juiced on the morning of the event: lulo, maracuyá, mango, mandarina and mora.
For the mimosa bar we pour cava or prosecco into chilled flutes next to four juices and a bowl of frozen fruit to keep the drinks cold. Plan on 3 glasses per guest over a three-hour brunch, which works out to roughly 1 bottle of sparkling wine for every 2 drinkers.
Non-drinkers get the same bar with soda water and tonic, plus a coffee bar with tinto and cappuccino. Hosts can bring their own sparkling wine, and any spirits we serve, such as vodka for bloody marys, carry the Antioquia department tax stamp.
A farewell brunch is the relaxed morning-after meal where a couple says goodbye to guests who flew in for the wedding. It usually runs from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., at the hotel, the couple's villa or the same finca as the wedding.
Guests are tired and sometimes a little hungover, so we lean on fresh juices, coconut water, eggs, arepas, fruit and a hearty caldo de costilla, the beef rib broth Colombians swear by after a long night. A mimosa bar is optional, and many couples keep it small because guests are flying out that afternoon from José María Córdova airport in Rionegro.
Book it together with your wedding catering, because the same team can pack the reception equipment and come back the next morning. For fincas in Llanogrande or La Ceja, we plan the travel and staffing for both days together.
Questions and answers
Most brunches start between 10:00 and 11:30 a.m. and run for about 3 hours. Farewell brunches after a wedding tend to begin a little later, around 11:00 a.m., to let guests sleep. For a staffed brunch our team arrives 2 to 3 hours before the first guests, so a 10:30 a.m. start means we are setting up by 8:00 a.m.
Yes, every part of a brunch can be made without animal products. We replace eggs with a tofu and turmeric scramble, use coconut yogurt with granola, make the waffles and pancakes with oat milk and serve arepas with avocado and hogao instead of cheese. Our vegan catering menus are cooked in a separate batch with their own utensils.
Reserve your date
Share your date, start time, guest count and whether you want a mimosa bar, and we will send a brunch menu with an itemized quote within 24 hours. Or write to info@medellincatering.com.