Meraki

Look for Meraki just off Oviedo in Oviedo: an unpretentious cafe where a good cup of coffee is the whole point. It is a fixture more than a destination, and the regulars tend to prefer it that way. The appeal is not complicated: a drink made with some care, somewhere you can stand still for a few minutes. Across Spain, places like this form the everyday backbone of how people take their coffee.

What it lacks in polish it tends to make up for in character, which is what keeps regulars coming back. It is the kind of place where you can sit a while, and nobody rushes you toward the door. Expect the easy, unforced character of an independent spot: coffee made without ceremony and a room that fills with regulars.

Meraki anchors its small patch of Oviedo, Spain, well within reach of anyone exploring the area on foot. The location does quiet work, putting good coffee in the path of an ordinary day. Easy to reach and easy to like, it makes a sensible stop on the way to most things. The coffee stops that last tend to be the ones you stop thinking about and just use, and this reads like one of them. What lingers about spots like this is rarely one drink so much as the run of ordinary good ones.