food & drink

If you care about coffee in Barcelona, the trail leads back to Cafés El Magnífico. The Sans family was roasting beans and pulling serious espresso here long before the specialty boom swept the city – the original article, the OGs, and still the benchmark everyone else measures up to. They’ve been on Carrer Argenteria since 1962, and the Born shop is the reference point for beans bought the old way – loose, by weight, chosen after a conversation with someone who actually knows the harvest.

The house calls itself a specialist in roasted coffee, and means it: the work begins at origin, continues in the daily roast and finishes at the counter, where staff talk you through varieties, methods and profiles. Salvador Sans and his team are working cuppers (professional tasters), and it shows in the range – the classics that built the brand sit beside a selection that rotates each month as new origins and exceptional lots arrive. Decide between a single origin and a blend, pick your method, and they’ll grind to match.

The takeaway espresso is the real argument – loyalists rate it among the best in the city – and you can carry home a bag and the kit to brew it: Aeropress, V60, French press, the lot. Next door, sister house Sans & Sans has done for tea since 1993 what El Magnífico does for coffee. Sixty years on, the family is still raising Barcelona’s coffee game one bag at a time.