Late-afternoon canelé and milk cream salt bun: Gonjiam café La Cuesta

On a nice day, I like to go for a drive and find a good-vibe café nearby, so this time I headed to La Cuesta in Gonjiam, Gwangju, Gyeonggi. It's a genuinely large bakery café, great for spending relaxed time, and with a wide range of bakery and brunch items, it also works well for a full meal plus dessert in one stop.

Where is La Cuesta Gwangju, and how is the parking?

La Cuesta Gwangju is at 278 Gyeongchung-daero, Gonjiam-eup, Gwangju-si, Gyeonggi-do, near Hwadam Botanic Garden. It's open 10:00 to 22:00 with last order at 21:30. Make the U-turn on the way there and the big bakery sign comes right into view.

La Cuesta really lives up to being a large café in Gwangju, Gyeonggi — the scale is huge. The first thing that caught my eye was the cool waterfall right at the entrance. In the middle of a hot summer, just hearing the rushing water felt refreshing.

La Cuesta has a large parking lot with space for over 100 cars. There's room for large buses at the lower level too, so it seems to get a lot of group visitors. Group seating reservations are available for parties of 20 or more.

From meju bread to canelé: what La Cuesta bakes

La Cuesta isn't just big in scale — it's known for making healthy bakery goods. Its meju sikppang (fermented soybean loaf) is famous enough to have appeared on TV, and there's even a patented oatmeal cookie made for pregnant women.

True to a bakery café, the variety of bread was really impressive — all kinds of baguettes and ciabatta, plus canelé, cookies, and other dessert pastries.

Croissants and campagne in particular looked like they'd work well as a meal replacement. The short cookies and meringue cookies were nicely packaged, good for gifting too.

The dalgona game and its 1,000-won coupon

One of La Cuesta's strengths is how many events and activities the café runs.

They sell dalgona (honeycomb toffee candy), and if you carve out the shape cleanly and bring it back with your receipt, you get a ₩1,000 coupon — a dalgona game that both kids and adults would find fun.

Late afternoon at La Cuesta: the cream roll bread was sold out

The cream roll bread looked delicious, but by late afternoon it was already sold out. Instead, the signature meju sikppang was still available.

There were sample pieces set out so you could taste the meju sikppang before buying — it let me experience this bakery's own take on the flavor. Buy two loaves and there's a discount!

Since I have a sweet tooth, my eyes went straight to the dessert breads piled high with fresh cream. The addictive corn bread and milk cream salt bread — both flavors with a guaranteed reputation — were ready and waiting. The salt bread had a beautifully browned crust and looked so tempting, and buying three gets you a discount. I walked around happily agonizing over which bread to choose among so many options.

If you're visiting with kids, buying a cookie-making kit and doing the icing yourself before eating also looks like a lot of fun.

Garden picnics outdoors and summer snowflake bingsu

After picking out bread and looking around the store, I found they rent out various picnic props so you can enjoy a picnic outside. On a nice spring or fall day, taking your bread and coffee out to the outdoor garden for a picnic would make a great date course!

Since it's summer season, they're also selling snow-flake bingsu (shaved ice dessert). The watermelon bingsu in particular looked super refreshing and delicious.

La Cuesta's brunch menu and the self-service oven

Even though La Cuesta is a bakery café, it also has a brunch menu. Single brunch is ₩22,000 and the duo brunch set for two is ₩39,000, with discounts on both running on weekdays — worth keeping in mind if you're planning a weekday visit.

Freshly baked bread is always the best... and here, you can warm up the bread you bought yourself using the self-service oven. There are even friendly instructions posted on how to use it.

After carefully choosing my bread and finishing my drink order, I took a look around the display counters.

Since a lot of families visit, there were plenty of drinks for kids too, and the tarts and cakes on display looked almost too pretty to eat!

They're also running an Instagram follow/hashtag event and a Naver receipt review event, so taking advantage of those means you can try even more of the bread!

They also sell balsamic oil and strawberry jam that pair well with the ciabatta or campagne. In the middle of the store, there's a group seating area set apart like a wrapped gift box.

Drawing contest and the free tasting corner

There was also a drawing event going on. Rather than just drinking coffee, there are various activities for kids to enjoy when they visit, which makes it a nice spot for family visits. They give out prizes to the monthly drawing contest winners, so if that kind of event interests you, it's worth joining in!

There's also a free sampling corner for new menu items, letting them gather honest feedback for product development.

On the way up to the second floor, there were beautifully wrapped cookie sets displayed, perfect for gifting.

Forest-view picture windows on La Cuesta's second floor

Following the stairs up to the second floor reveals a whole different atmosphere. Beside the stairs, there's a bear statue holding candy, which kids would love. Along the wall up the second-floor stairs, all kinds of books were on display.

Right at the top of the stairs was a life-four-cut photo booth, and plenty of cute bear dolls perfect for photos.

The second-floor space is lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, giving a full view of the forest scenery. With the green landscape spreading out beyond the glass, it felt open and airy rather than cramped, and the space itself was spacious enough to spend time in at ease.

On a nice day, basking in warm sunlight while gazing at the forest with a coffee in hand would be healing in itself.

The restrooms were also spotless, with small thoughtful touches like cotton swabs and hair ties available.

How did the bread and drinks at La Cuesta taste?

Wanting a hearty, meal-replacing spread of bread and coffee today, I picked a variety — milk cream salt bun, addictive corn bread, mentaiko baguette, and canelé, all sweet-and-salty combinations — and ordered the signature La Cuesta latte plus an iced Americano.

The iced Americano had a nutty flavor without acidity, while the La Cuesta latte came with rich milk and sweet cream, delivering a solid sugar boost.

I warmed the bread up slightly in the oven and ate it hot.

It's a filling spread just to look at, hahaha.

They cut it into bite-sized pieces, and once I tried it, the addictive corn bread had a great popping corn texture along with its sweetness. Warming it up really maximized the sweet flavor.

The mentaiko baguette surprised me — it wasn't what I expected. The salty mentaiko (seasoned pollock roe) came with a spicy kick that kept me reaching for more. The milk cream salt bun had a soft bun with sweet milk cream inside that balanced perfectly.

A Gonjiam café to pair with a day at Hwadam Botanic Garden

La Cuesta isn't just a large café in terms of size — it's a place where you can enjoy healthy bakery goods, a spacious and airy floor-to-ceiling forest view, an outdoor garden picnic, and a variety of events, all in one spot. On a nice day especially, enjoying a picnic in the outdoor garden and then coffee and bakery items inside while looking at the forest view would be more than enough for a full day-trip course.

From the forest view to healthy bakery goods and outdoor picnics, this large Gonjiam café is a great pairing with a visit to Hwadam Botanic Garden!