Gonjiam bakery café with melon bread and window seats: La Cuesta

A large café near Hwadam Botanic Garden

La Cuesta near Hwadam, easy to reach right on the main road

If you head out around Gyeonggi-do, you'll see so many gorgeous large cafés. Because of land prices, most of them end up tucked away somewhere remote, but La Cuesta, the large bakery café in Gonjiam, Gwangju, is near Hwadam Botanic Garden with great scenery, and it's right on the main road, so it's easy to get to.

Last weekend my wife said she wanted to have coffee somewhere with a nice view after a long while, so we made a special trip out here. Also, big cafés usually just charge a lot for bread that isn't even that tasty, but La Cuesta had delicious and varied breads, and the coffee was great too haha.

It's located on Gyeongchung-daero in Gonjiam-eup, and the parking lot is huge.

First-floor window seats and the second-floor hall, nearly full even in midsummer

The first floor of La Cuesta, the large café in Gonjiam, Gwangju, has a space for picking out bread, a spot to order brunch or coffee, and a handful of tables. The second floor has a bigger, nicer hall, but I have a habit of not being able to sit for long in crowded places, so my wife just said let's sit by the window on the first floor...

It was so hot I figured there wouldn't be many people, but it was nearly full. Haha.

If you go up the stairs, there are umbrella seats outside too, though nobody was using them since it was too hot. The second floor has much more spacious tables than the first.

Once the weather cools down a bit, those umbrella seats are apparently the popular spot~ drinking outdoors is the best, and coffee in this kind of outdoor setting is the best too.

Hooked by the melon bread at the sample corner

Shall we pick out some bread? My wife loves enjoying bread and coffee at cafés like this, so I tag along sometimes too, and La Cuesta's bread was exactly my style, so it made for a fun day. And it's nice that the bread isn't crazy expensive either. So we were able to order a bunch of different things.

There's a sample corner in the middle like this. I ended up getting hooked on the melon bread while sampling... the melon bread is delicious. Shall we take a look at La Cuesta's variety of breads?

La Cuesta's bread isn't mostly the meal-bread type my wife likes — there's a lot of sweeter bread that I like, which suits me perfectly haha. The meju (fermented soybean) loaf caught my eye and my wife wanted to buy it, but I forgot and skipped it haha. The red bean bread was a bit pricey so I held back tears and went with melon bread instead~ haha.

I took the lead picking out bread this time. Exactly my favorite style of bread haha. I picked mostly breads filled with cream and cream cheese. Lately I've only been buying meal bread, and my mouth just wasn't having fun. Especially since I caught a sore throat from the air conditioning... so having something sweet like this was nice.

How were the cream bread, pastry and melon bread?

This bread was so delicious. The cream inside is great too, and I really love breads dusted with powdered sugar haha.

The pastry was also very well made. I really love pastry that breaks apart crisply like this.

This is the melon bread, filled with melon cream inside haha. Nice.

La Cuesta latte, packed with ice and sweet

This is the La Cuesta latte. It's filled with quite a lot of ice, and it's a bit sweet — but so delicious.

The cream bread at La Cuesta, the large café in Gwangju, Gyeonggi, was so good. Having a cookie alongside the La Cuesta latte made it feel even tastier.

When's the best time to go?

So what do you think? If you're looking for a large café with a nice atmosphere, I'll have to stop by La Cuesta, the large café in Gwangju, Gyeonggi, again sometime. Above all, having the bread and coffee I love makes me so happy.

Late on weekends, traffic around here gets completely jammed, so I'd recommend stopping by a bit earlier and enjoying it along with brunch.

La Cuesta