Café Compass: Madrid
Madrid is one of our favorite cities we've ever visited. We may be biased with Spain as a whole country, since part of our great-grandparents were born and raised there (Shh, don't tell our Italian ones. Lol).
Since Café Compass is about our favorite coffee shops and bakeries, we'll leave our Madrid love as a city for our city recs section. So without further ado, here's our Madrid Café Compass:
Religion - @ReligionCoffee_
In our opinion, this coffee shop makes the tastiest coffee in Madrid. We came here almost every single morning after our daily walk around El Retiro park to have our mid-morning coffee. Of course, we also spent our afternoons here as well; who doesn't love an afternoon coffee, right?
Their María de Molina location has sidewalk seating, so it's a nice spot if you like having your coffee outside.
Our favorite sweet treats are the brownie, chocolate chunk cookie and banana bread. Both their hot and iced lattes are amazing.
Locations: C. del Príncipe de Vergara, 16 (small shop with little seating) - C. de María de Molina, 24.
They have multiple locations around Madrid, and they are an excellent choice if you want your coffee to-go; or if you want to have a light-bite and a great coffee. Some of their locations are on the smaller side, meant for take-away with only bar-type seating, others have a couple more tables, while their Diego de León location is the one with the most seating space of them all.
Our go-to's are hot latte or iced latte with a pain au chocolat or croissant. Bonus: they have alternative milk options including lactose-free milk and oat milk.
Locations: Calle de Hermosilla, 38 - Calle del Almirante, 10 - Calle de Diego de León, 12 (location with the most seating space of them all) - C. de Alfonso X, 5 - C. del Conde de Peñalver, 20 - C. de Eloy Gonzalo, 28 - C. de Nieremberg, 21 - C. del Príncipe de Vergara, 254. You can also find them in the following cities around Spain: Valencia, Bilbao, Donostia, Sevilla and Zaragoza.
Casa Neutrale - @casaneutrale
Casa Neutrale was our preferred breakfast spot during a whole week on one of our trips to Madrid, as the hotel we were staying at was really close by. The coffee is good, and their menu has a variety of options to start your day; we also went a couple of times for lunch as we enjoy having sandwiches and light bites. Our most ordered picks were the eggs benedict toast, the butter and jam toast, avocado toast and the mixto sandwich (brioche bread, ham and Mahon & Gouda cheeses).
Only thing to keep in mind is laptops are not allowed; well, nowadays in most specialty coffee shops around the world you are not allowed to work on your laptop, or in some they may even have designated hours and seating areas for people to be working at.
Locations: C. de Regueros, 13 - Plaza de Cataluña, 2.