UNKNOWN FACES

Reading the Dole Cafè grounds

LEANDRE MATEU I ROCHER foto DANIELA ARMORA

Walk through the streets and squares of Sarrià's old town, and greetings to Leandre Mateu are constant. Everyone knows him. Because he is the one who prepares their coffee just the way they like it every morning, or because they know he is the owner of Dole Cafè, the sandwich bar that makes you touch the sky

Carme Escales

may 25, 2026

Those who understand it say that at the bottom of a cup of coffee that someone has drunk, certain information about that person can be read. The grounds that we now and here begin to read have been written and drawn by many coffee cups, each with its own grounds. In some, the coffee has been drunk black, in others, with milk, with sugar, saccharin, or without any of these. We are at the Dole Cafè, where the machine for this stimulating drink that helps wake you up starts every day and very early. At six in the morning, Leandre already raises the blind of this bar that he opened with his father, Domènec Mateu, when he was only fifteen years old. With the first two letters of the father's name and those of the son, they built the name of a charismatic cafeteria that has managed to make a good place for itself in the daily lives of many people. They inaugurated it on June 11, 1974, fifty-two years ago, which is quickly said. How many coffees could this man have made in all that time? Only the calculator knows. Load the coffee, already ground, into the filter container, fit it, turning the wrist with the handle and wait for it to start falling into the cup. A small decoration with cocoa on the foam, plate and spoon. This gesture, so prominent and absolutely daily at Dole Cafè, enveloped in its sounds and aromas, day after day, and repeated for more than half a lifetime by Leandre's hands, has woven around this coffee-drinking ritual great relationships of neighborhood, of clientele, of acquaintances who meet at coffee time, during the break to grab a bite before catching a plane, to resume work, before going shopping or continuing to serve in a shop in the same neighborhood. Both groups, on the afternoon of next Saturday, June 13, are called to celebrate this long half-century of Dole Cafè. Welcome will be anyone who, at one time or another, one day or another, one moment of life or another, has come in to eat a sandwich, drink a coffee, or order freshly made cannelloni, omelet, or croquettes to enjoy them at the bar, at one of the tables on the terrace, or at home, watching TV or sharing quality time with friends or family, in the dining room at home. "The gospel choir from the Capuchin convent, who had told me a while ago that they wanted to come and sing, will come that day, we'll have a drink and sing," says the owner of this mythical cafeteria in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district, located at number 16 Manuel de Falla street, on the corner with Capitán Arenas.

Profitable Readings

Leandre's connection with the Capuchin friars of Sarrià goes way back. Ever since one day he entered to visit the convent, near the Dole, and liked the people he found there. So much so, that place gradually became a bit like his second home. In the monks' library, he discovered the Philokalia, "the second most important meditation book in the Church, after the Bible," he says. "They are prayer techniques based on breathing. The choir prayer that comes from the desert anchorites," he explains. In fact ---he points out--- "every time you breathe, you pray, because you share with the universe trust in everything around you." And he says that both singing and breathing have accompanied him all his life. A nodule in his neck required him to do rehabilitation through singing, and he did it with private lessons from a singing teacher in the Sarrià neighborhood. It is the neighborhood where Leandre had his nursery school, in the Amat tower, where Ladislao Kubala had lived, with whose son, Carlos, he did his military service.

Leandre opened the bar with his father, Domènec Mateu, when he was only fifteen years old. © Carme Escales

The daycare was in Sarrià, but the rest of the day she spent in Paral·lel, where Leandre's family had a restaurant, in front of the Molino. They worked as hard as they could. He was still very young when his father placed a box for him to reach the counter and help them, at first, with whatever he could do. He thus began to build his incipient skills at the helm of a bar. Observing his parents and uncles, he forged a way of serving and treating everyone. And, with the same work, preparing sandwiches and coffees, his skill and naturalness grew, while helping the family. He had to do his military service split between Reus and Barcelona, where they put him in the bar of the air sector. He remembers it was a soulless bar, with a dull atmosphere, a little-frequented place, which he managed to change dramatically, since he already knew a business like that from behind the counter. He knew how to provide very good products and, above all, a service that helped to liven up the atmosphere, to attract customers. And, consequently, when settling accounts with the bar manager, the numbers not only added up: they exceeded expectations.

Pastries at Dole Café. © Dole Café

At Dole Cafè, it was like this from the beginning: they don't know how to make anything but good things. The sandwiches are cinematic, and not just because they name them after movies or well-known characters like Popeye and Olivia, but because they are so spectacularly tasty that each sandwich has its most enthusiastic customers. With cured ham, Emmental cheese, and spinach, they prepare the Popeye, and with ham, goat cheese, and eggplant, they make an Olivia. It seems like a lie that, from such a small space, to sit, walk or stand, so much variety of assortments, sweet and savory, can come out. Practically everything, except the bread from Dole, is made in their workshop. The rest: croissants, ensaimadas, tortillas, croquettes, cannelloni and everything is handmade. All the artisanal exquisiteness that can fit in a bar where such good things are made, is at Dole. Whoever visits it early in the morning can get their first dose of caffeine, but also a good atmosphere, a good time shared between bites of ciabatta bread sandwiches that eat themselves. It is not strange that Leandre wakes up every day with that illusion of knowing what he will see in the bar, the people who come in and feed on the good products amidst the beat of a friendly atmosphere, before clinging to the obligations of the day.

Leandre Mateu i Rocher, without intending to, has become the man who made a coffee a community of friends. © Carme Escales

The greatness of the simplest things

It is this greatness of the simplest things that Leandre most exalts and with which his path is illuminated, like noticing small details such as the reaction of some creatures on the street that he saw and experienced a few days ago: "Three girls were passing in front of the Dole and one of them stared at the bar and said: "Wow!!! It looks like a theater!", and paying attention, another one also said: When I grow up, I want to get married here". The anecdote is a small treasure of the three friends, and Leandre's great fortune is that, facts like these, as spontaneous as they are original, whether they come from an adult or a child, are pillars of his satisfaction, a reason for joy and an inner embrace of conscience that tells him: Leandre, what happened is very beautiful, it is real and it is yours. Yes, he knows that "a piece of bread in the mountains, you share it and you feel happiness, because it is found in the simplest things in life". Leandre's bar was already in full swing when he decided to train as an esplai monitor. And about what he learned, he thought: "I could apply this to the business." And, between sandwiches and coffees, one fine day, a listening gaze, a piece of good conversation has managed to weave synergies among those who feel good somewhere.

"Every person who comes in to tell you something, to wish you a good day, to greet you, is a gift, and a box of surprises"

Many things happen in a café, many stories visit it, and life itself is reflected in very few meters of a place, that of the Dole, very nice, pleasant and full of simply exquisite elaborations Leandre is that plant that blooms wherever it is planted. "For me, it's gratifying to get up to go to work. When you do a job you like, that fulfills you, it's like that." And what makes her workdays so pleasant? It's that great little pleasure they serve at the Dole, in every cup of coffee and in ensaimadas or sandwiches. "Every person who comes in to tell you something, to wish you a good day, to greet you, is a gift, and a box of surprises," she expresses.

Leandre Mateu serving coffees at Dole Cafè.

During the Covid pandemic lockdown, Leandre and his daughter Míriam dedicated themselves to dismantling the entire bar to meticulously clean every inch. The employees were on ERO, and upon their return, Míriam made a place for herself among them. In the kitchen and workshop, she does an amazing job making cakes, tortillas, croissants, and ensaimadas. She makes everything herself. At home, she had the best place to put into practice all the knowledge acquired at the CETT cooking school. The variety of tortillas and sandwiches at Dole is as diverse and magnificent as the enthusiasm perceived in the atmosphere of this cafeteria, barely thirty-five square meters in size. Standing or sitting on a stool at the bar, customers greet each other, converse, ask questions, observe. Or, simply, they savor the creamy coffee and the delicious freshly made tortilla sandwich. And, suddenly, one fine day one of them asked Leandre why they didn't organize a calçotada, a concert, a golf tournament... And so, without anything being premeditated, naturally, the fans of Dole's sandwiches, cannelloni, tortillas, croquettes, and coffees began to do activities together outside of there.

"The energy of the Dole Cafè is so great that it has to go outside," expresses Leandre, thinking about all the activities they have been organizing. The group dynamics, human relationships, and good atmosphere of a café that is much more than that have borne fruit. "A coffee is a simple thing, that everyone can drink, and you bring happiness. Making a coffee is something that brings people together, that unites, it's a ritual, with its smell, the foam, the aroma, and the chocolate that I add, it's a grateful product." This is how Leandre Mateu i Rocher, without intending to, ended up being the man who, from a coffee, made a community of friends. "We have reached one hundred and fifty on some of the outings," he assures. This is the art of understanding each other with a simple coffee. After fifty-two years, Leandre continues to cling to the coffee machine. There is nothing he likes more than making those coffees that, with the small sediment they leave in each cup, make the sediment of the Dole Cafè bigger and more endearing.

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Carme Escales

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