Sunday full lot and free new-menu tasting at Gonjiam café La Cuesta

What kind of café is La Cuesta in Gonjiam?

La Cuesta is a large forest bakery café located at 278 Gyeongchung-daero, Gonjiam-eup, Gwangju-si, Gyeonggi-do. It's open daily from 10am to 10pm and has its own dedicated parking lot.

I've lived in Gwangju, Gyeonggi for six years now. After living in Seoul for a long time and then moving out here, one of the best things about this area is how many huge, comfortable large cafés there are close to home — with easy parking, even. A kind of spaciousness I never got to enjoy in Seoul.

With that in mind, today I'm writing about a visit to a large forest café very close to home, in Gonjiam — La Cuesta.

• Address: 278 Gyeongchung-daero, Gwangju-si, Gyeonggi-do
• Hours: Daily 10:00–22:00
• Parking: Dedicated café parking lot available

Sunday afternoon parking at La Cuesta: the lot down the hill

The road leading up to La Cuesta. The café sits on a slight hill, and when the lot right in front of the café building fills up, there's a large lot down at the bottom of the hill you can use instead.

Today, being a busy Sunday afternoon, the lot right in front of the building was completely full. The lot itself is quite spacious, though, so on a weekday you'd probably have no trouble parking at all.

The path up to the La Cuesta entrance. It was pretty hot today with that lingering late-summer heat, and the cool water feature in front of the entrance felt so refreshing!

The entrance to La Cuesta. As the sign posted next to it shows, this café's mejubread has already been featured on TV for its fame.

What bread is on the La Cuesta bakery display?

Walking into La Cuesta, the first thing that catches your eye is the bakery display case, lined with an enormous variety of breads.

La Cuesta's TV-featured mejubread tasting

This is the famous mejubread! Whoever named it nailed it — at first glance it really does look like a block of fermented soybean paste (meju)...

Next to the mejubread there are slices cut up for customers to try. It's not too sweet, so it should really suit older palates.

Free new-menu tasting corner you rate with stickers

There's also a free tasting corner that shows how carefully La Cuesta listens to customer feedback and keeps improving. They set out breads they're considering for the new menu and let customers rate them honestly with stickers.

I feel like Koreans tend to have this habit of not being able to give blunt, honest feedback when standing right in front of the owner — so a tasting corner like this, where customers can express their opinions freely without worrying about being watched, feels really great.

There's also an oven in the café so you can warm up any bread you've bought.

Maybe because Chuseok (Korean harvest holiday) was coming up the following week, there was also a stand on the first floor displaying holiday gift sets. Check the video to see what products they had~

La Cuesta seating: 1st floor or 2nd floor?

Here's what the first floor of La Cuesta looks like. Since the bakery display and counter are on this floor, it's understandably a bit more cramped than the second floor.

The view outside through the cool windows. Let's head up the stairs to the second floor.

The second floor felt a lot more spacious than the first, and maybe because of the higher vantage point, the view out the windows felt even more refreshing.

Tables and chairs arranged to face the windows.

The lush green trees outside the window are so cleansing to look at. We first took a seat by the window ourselves. Here are our desserts and drinks, photographed in all that bright sunlight.

We ended up moving to a spot further inside, haha. The strong afternoon sun blasting through the window seat got to be a bit much in today's heat...

How do the La Cuesta latte and grapefruit ade taste?

The coffee I ordered was the café's signature La Cuesta latte, and it really suited my taste — just the right sweetness paired with a rich coffee aroma, a perfect match for me! Highly recommend the La Cuesta latte!

My husband's grapefruit ade was also really refreshing and delicious.

The restroom on the second floor of the café. It was kept very clean.

La Cuesta's outdoor space and a Hwadam Botanic Garden day trip

I stepped out of the café and into the outdoor space. Follow these stairs all the way up and you reach outdoor tables and a fountain area, and if you climb once more up the stairway seen on the right in the video, there's another outdoor table area tucked even deeper into the forest. It really feels like you've stepped into nature.

Gonjiam isn't too far from Seoul, so it's an easy trip for anyone heading out to the outskirts of Seoul on the weekend, and with its convenient parking, La Cuesta is well worth stopping by.

On top of that, as autumn foliage season approaches, Gonjiam's famous tourist attraction Hwadam Botanic Garden draws huge crowds — and since La Cuesta is very close to Hwadam Botanic Garden, I'd recommend adding it to that route.