Gonjiam bakery café with a wide parking lot and white roll: La Cuesta

A large café in Gonjiam, Gyeonggi Here's my review of La Cuesta, which has a spacious parking lot

I went for a drive toward Gonjiam and wanted to grab coffee and bread at a large café, so I stopped by La Cuesta. There are so many cafés around Gwangju, Gyeonggi, but when you're driving, parking is always a bit of a worry. Especially on weekends, even if you like the café itself, tight parking can be tiring before you even walk in — so I liked that La Cuesta had a big parking lot right away.

How big is the parking lot at La Cuesta?

There's plenty of parking space in front of the café, and the building itself is huge, so I felt the scale of the place as soon as I arrived. La Cuesta is a large bakery café located at 278 Gyeongchung-daero, Gonjiam-eup, Gwangju-si, Gyeonggi-do. The building is made of full glass panels, so it looks bright and open even from outside, and with the green space around it, the vibe felt a little different from a city café.

Inside seating and the outdoor space at La Cuesta

Walking inside, the space was really wide, true to a large café.

The tables weren't cramped and there were various seating styles, so it looked good both for friends and for families. Even with a fair number of people around, the space itself is so big that it didn't feel crowded. On nice-weather days, you can also use the outdoor area, so it looked good for enjoying the outside atmosphere with a coffee.

La Cuesta's bakery selection and free tasting corner

The bakery selection here is pretty diverse, so if you like bread, you'll be stuck deciding what to pick the moment you walk in.

We were only planning to have drinks, but once we saw the bread, we couldn't just walk past it, haha.

They also had cookie decorating sets for kids. Customers visiting with children were buying a lot of these!!

Canelé, kkuinamang, red bean bread, garlic baguette and more — all lined up, the kind of bakery items lots of people love :)

There was also a free tasting corner, so I could try things without pressure before picking my bread... haha.

La Cuesta menu and prices

Here's La Cuesta's menu board.

There was a wide variety of coffee options too.

They also have tea, smoothies, and ades.

What we ordered: two lattes and three breads

This time we ordered

• Café latte
• La Cuesta latte
• Kkuinamang
• Sausage bread
• White roll

and that's what we picked.

First, the café latte was a solid pick for when you just want a straightforward coffee. It had milk in it so it was smooth to drink and paired well with the bread.

What does the signature La Cuesta latte taste like?

What I was curious about was the La Cuesta latte. Since the café's name is right in the drink's name, it felt like the signature menu, and it was definitely different from a regular latte. There was cream on top, so it felt like drinking something similar to an einspänner. At first I wondered if I should scoop the cream separately, but drinking straight from the cup, the coffee and cream come together and taste smooth and sweet. It suited me more when I wanted coffee that felt like dessert rather than just a plain latte. Personally, if you're eating it with bread, I think it's a good idea to order one clean drink like the café latte and one sweet drink like the La Cuesta latte and share them.

Kouign-amann, sausage bread and white roll together

The kkuinamang was crispy on the outside with a buttery flavor inside — a pastry, so it went perfectly with coffee. Especially with this kind of bread, once you eat it with hot coffee, you keep reaching for more even if you meant to have just one.

I also picked the sausage bread, and mixing in something savory rather than only sweet breads made for a nice combination. When just having dessert with coffee feels a bit lacking but a full brunch feels like too much, having one sausage bread on the side hits just the right spot, right? Haha.

The white roll, true to its name, was on the plain side, so it had a different mood from the other breads. With the buttery kkuinamang and the savory sausage bread, having the plain white roll in between actually worked out well.

Is La Cuesta worth a stop on a Gonjiam drive?

Overall, this time we picked several kinds of bread to share with our coffee, and I felt La Cuesta is less a place to just come for drinks and more a spot to enjoy the bakery alongside coffee. Especially since people often get around Gonjiam by car, having a café that's easy to park at mattered quite a bit — thanks to the large parking space, we could walk in without any worry from the start.

La Cuesta really does have a large parking lot in front of the store, and it's introduced as a large bakery café with a first floor, second floor, and outdoor space. It seems like a good option when you're looking for a café after a meal in Gonjiam, or a place to rest during a drive. It would especially suit people who prefer wide, relaxed spaces over small cafés.

Personally, parking is always the first thing I worry about when going to a café, and here the parking lot was spacious, which was the most convenient part; once inside, the space was so wide that even sitting for a long time didn't feel stuffy. Rather than just drinking coffee and leaving, it had a good atmosphere for picking out bread and chatting slowly, and if you're looking for a good-sized bakery café around Gonjiam, it's worth a visit at least once. Next time I visit, I'd like to try the other bakery items I didn't get to this time.

If you're in Gonjiam, Gwangju, Gyeonggi looking for a large café with easy parking, how about La Cuesta?