# Cafes El Magnifico, Barcelona



## fatboyslim (Sep 29, 2011)

Wouldn't usually bother with writing a review for a cafe I visited on holiday but this one really deserves a special mention and acknowledgement for the fantastic job they do.

Firstly Cafes El Magnifico (for anyone that understands Spanish) is not actually a cafe, its a coffee shop that principally sells coffee for off-property consumption. They do however offer "demonstrations" on how to make coffee from an espresso or brewed menu.










They then have a rather thick coffee menu of all the beans they roast on a fairly frequent basis to purchase in 1/4kg 1/2kg or even full kilo bags. This menu also informs the best equipment to use for brewing i.e. espresso, stove top, aeropress, v60 etc. They also sell all the brewing equipment and accessories you might need including Hario filter papers, which was fortunately considering I was just about to order some from UK.










I shared a pretty good espresso with my gf but it was nothing special compared to outputs from Slayers/Cynessos etc in top London cafes. The thing that is amazing is that its probably one of the best espressos in Spain. Spain is so far behind in terms of coffee as far as I know, particularly Madrid where I currently live. So to get an espresso of this quality is a revolution. I then shared a 3-6 cup chemex with my gf that was served in pre-heated wine glasses and was introduced by the barista in Spanish (but he later revealed he spoke English too), which was simply fantastic. They were using this huge Mahlkonig grinder for brewed:








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Overall a fantastic experience, delivered by a single very knowledgeable barista that helped us choose a bean for our chemex then helped with takeaway bean purchases and buying accessories. He was extremely knowledgeable and we heard him later refusing to add flavoured syrups to a cappuccino till they tried it first without. Genius!



















Now for the really amazing thing. This coffee shop has been selling amazing quality coffee as it currently does, in the same way for 25 years! That pre-dates any coffee revolution or "3rd-wave" here in the UK. Really amazing to have found such a gem and I really hope anyone that is planning to go to Barcelona definitely takes the time to go here and have a coffee and a chat. Simply brilliant!

Address: Carrer de l'Argenteria, 64, 08003 Barcelona map here


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

Sounds really cool. My gf is Spanish and her sister lives in Madrid. I never found that place last time I was in Barcelona unfortunately. I see they also do Te frio. They may refuse to serve me if they knew I'd been working on new ways to market Lipton Ice Tea last week.


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## garydyke1 (Mar 9, 2011)

Thanks for this Mark. Im hitting Barca in a few weeks : )


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## fatboyslim (Sep 29, 2011)

You'll love it Gary. As review says, I'd suggest sticking with brewed coffees of the espresso offerings.

Just ordered some beans over the phone with postage to Madrid but actually a very similar price to ordering from Has Bean and shipping internationally....


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## Eskimoba (Sep 21, 2014)

Was here last week - amazing place! Unfortunately was closed on Sat and Sun but we managed to get a great cup of coffee during the week!


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