At Calle de Lagasca 42 in Madrid’s Salamanca district, Hola Coffee puts its own Madrid-roasted beans at the centre of a pleasingly broad coffee offer. Espresso, milk drinks and filter sit alongside cold brew and seasonal composed drinks. Coffee can be the whole subject or an ingredient with interesting company. That range is a good reason to seek out Lagasca, whether your curiosity runs to a filter brew or a more elaborate recipe.
This is one of Hola’s three Madrid cafés, alongside Fourquet and the Pedro Díez roastery café, where the roasting and training take place. Lagasca was designed with the intention of creating a warmer space than Fourquet. A brew bar near the entrance leads into a larger room behind, while Marvilla ceramics give the cups their own character. There is more room here than the first encounter with the counter suggests, though seat comfort may be a sticking point for a long afternoon. The welcome extends to pets and breastfeeding parents.
Pastries and toast keep the food in light-breakfast and coffee-break territory. They make sense beside a menu whose main interest is what goes into the cup; this is somewhere to come with an appetite for coffee and a little something alongside it. Beans are also sold to take home, should the interest outlast the drink.
Lagasca opens at 08:00 on weekdays and 09:00 at weekends and on public holidays, staying open until 20:00 every day. There is something quietly agreeable about that late finish: the filter-coffee part of the day need not end at breakfast.