Departure Coffee Co.
By Michael Mueller
The Raval isn’t short on noise, but it is short on calm. Enter Departure Coffee Co. – a little oasis down one of the quarter’s tiny side streets, equal parts coffee bar and art gallery. Xavi and Raquel opened it in 2017 inside a former carpentry workshop and left the bones intact: raw, pared-back, high-ceilinged, the kind of room that rewards an hour with a notebook. The walls earn their keep too, with exhibitions that turn over every few weeks.
The coffee is the serious draw. They pour beans from local roaster SlowMov, dialing each one to its own temperature curve to coax the flavors out of the cup, and brew across V60, pour-over, cold brew and espresso. The result is consistently rated among the best in the neighborhood – careful, unfussy, made by people who clearly care. For anyone who wants to go past drinking it, they run courses in the craft of specialty coffee.
It’s not a place that announces itself, and that’s rather the point. Those in the know slip in for a quiet, properly made cup, a look at whatever’s on the walls, and a corner to get some work done. A genuine departure from the chaos outside.