Cartagena has long nights, which means a lot of people looking for a strong coffee by Sunday morning. The brunch scene has risen to meet that person, and the options are better than you’d expect.
The spots below range from quiet, beautiful breakfasts that make you feel like a functioning adult to places that admit, honestly, that the night before was a lot. Some are in the Walled City. Some require a short cab ride. All of them are worth your time, and every one is somewhere we’d point our own guests toward without hesitation.
The Best Brunch in the City, Full Stop: Pascal
If you only do one brunch in Cartagena, it should be Pascal. Chef and owner Alejandro MartÃnez opened it in Getsemanà after the pandemic closed his previous restaurant, with the simple goal of making really good food in a relaxed space. That goal has been achieved so thoroughly that Pascal has become one of the most talked-about breakfast spots in the city. The owner is usually there himself, which tells you everything about the level of care the place gets. Local ingredients, creative preparation, the kind of meal that makes the rest of the day feel like a bonus.
The Getsemanà location is small and fills up fast. When it’s at capacity the sliding glass doors are actually locked, so you’ll find yourself outside looking in at a full restaurant with no obvious way in. That’s not a sign to give up. It just means it’s full. Either wait it out and explore the neighborhood for a bit, or take an Uber to the Bocagrande location, which is larger, easier to get into, feels more residential and local, and is a perfectly good excuse to see another side of the city.
For the Long, Unhurried Brunch: Carta Ajena
Carta Ajena is inside OSH Hotel in Getsemanà and it has quietly built a reputation as one of the most consistently excellent dining experiences in the city at any hour. The brunch menu runs until 3 p.m. on weekdays, which in a city where mornings can start late is a genuinely useful thing to know. The food is creative and Caribbean-rooted without being precious about it: the kind of menu where you read the descriptions and immediately want three things. The cocktails match the food’s ambition. The service is warm. If you want a brunch that feels like an occasion rather than just a meal, this is it.
The Reliable Go-To: Ely
Ely is the place you go when you want a great brunch without having to think too hard about it. Consistently excellent food, great coffee, and enough variety that even the fussiest member of your group will find something they’re happy about. The menu also leans lighter than most spots in the city, with proper salads that are genuinely worth calling out in a place where greens can be hard to find. Works equally well as a lunch spot if you’ve missed the brunch window. The Walled City location is our recommendation for a quieter experience. The Bocagrande location is bigger, more kid-friendly, and better suited for families, though it gets significantly more crowded on weekends.
For a Beautiful Setting: Casona Vida
Casona Vida earns its place on this list partly for the food and partly for the space. The colonial interior near the Iglesia de Santo Toribio is beautiful in a modern, photogenic way: traditional bones with stylish touches that make the whole place feel considered rather than just old. The menu leans toward the healthier, more internationally-influenced end of the brunch spectrum, the kind of spot that appeals equally to visitors who want a beautiful morning and locals who take their food seriously. The Zona Norte location in Las Ramblas is equally good if you’re in that part of the city. The Walled City branch is a little hard to find, tucked off a side street near Plaza San Diego, so use Google Maps rather than trying to navigate by instinct.
For Coffee and Brunch Together: Café Época
Café Época is on this list because it does two things at once and does both of them well. The in-house roasting operation, the eight local farm sourcing relationships, and the rotating limited edition specialty offerings make it one of the serious coffee destinations in the city. The brunch menu is equally solid, with bottomless brunch on weekends drawing a crowd that knows what it’s doing. Two floors in a beautiful colonial building with a narrow spiral staircase to the second. It gets loud. Go anyway.
For the Best Value in the City: Crepes & Waffles
Crepes & Waffles is the most Colombian restaurant in Colombia, which is a somewhat remarkable thing to say about a creperie. Founded in a Bogotá garage in 1980, it’s now a certified B Corporation employing over 8,000 people worldwide, 82% of them women and most of them single mothers who are the primary breadwinners in their families. The company pays above minimum wage, provides healthcare and housing support, and sources ingredients from small farming communities. Every meal here is doing something beyond feeding you.
And the food is genuinely good. The savory brunch crepes are the move. The sweets lean toward the overly sweet side, so calibrate your expectations there. The bill at the end will be lower than you expect, which after a few days in Cartagena feels like a small miracle. The La Serrezuela location near the Walled City is our pick. It gets loud, it gets busy, service can slow down when full, and brunch has a cutoff so don’t arrive too late. But it is very much worth going.
For When the Night Before Never Quite Ended: El PasquÃn de Joaco
We included El PasquÃn in our best bars guide because by night it’s one of the best party spots in the Walled City. We’re including it here because it also does brunch, which should surprise no one given that it apparently never closes. During the day the two-floor space transforms into a fusion restaurant with live music, a full brunch menu, and Colombian coffee. It is, by any reasonable definition, still a party. If you wake up and feel like easing back into civilization gradually, with a good cocktail in hand, El PasquÃn has worked this out for you already.
Seven spots, seven very different reasons to sit down and eat before noon. Or after noon. Cartagena is flexible about these things. If you’re building a morning in the Walled City around any of the above, stop by Magno Chocolates on Calle de la FactorÃa afterward. A cacao drink is, we’d argue, the most Colombian way to finish a brunch in this city.
