On Barcelona’s Avinguda Diagonal, Jaç Hi-Fi Café brings together two parallel rituals: listening and drinking. It is the creation of Ligia and Arnau, who set out to craft a space where sound and taste share equal importance. Their inspiration comes from the Japanese jazz kissa, venues where vinyl takes precedence and conversation slips into the background. At Jaç the tradition is reinterpreted through a Mediterranean lens, making the atmosphere warmer, brighter, and more open while keeping the same reverence for music.
The interior is by Isern Serra Studio, whose work across Barcelona is marked by an ability to reduce, refine, and shape environments that invite focus. Here, Serra works with a palette of walnut, stainless steel, and microcement across 95 square metres. The space is structured to encourage lingering rather than passing through. Every detail feels deliberate: the way light falls across wood grain, the acoustics shaped by curved timber walls, the balance between open lounge and intimate alcove.
The lounge sets the tone immediately. A concrete sofa softened with tailored cushions offers weight and comfort, framed by Noguchi’s Akari E lamp for Vitra and artworks by Chidy Wayne. A large stainless steel communal table designed by Serra reflects and amplifies the light, while Antoni Arola’s Lámina pendant for Santa & Cole hangs above, more sculpture than fixture. At the centre, a monolithic walnut bar built by Fusteria Vidal does the work of three objects at once: counter, display for pastries, and integrated housing for Bloom Island speakers sculpted from the same walnut. This merging of bar and speaker turns the act of ordering into part of the listening experience.
Toward the rear of the café, Serra shaped a sweeping walnut installation that folds up from the wall and curves into the ceiling, creating an alcove devoted to listening. Within it, stainless steel Bloom Island speakers, low walnut tables, and custom seating combine with a disco wall lamp by Jordi Miralbell and Mariona Reventós to heighten the atmosphere. It is intimate but not closed, designed to hold focus without shutting the room away. The façade carries this same language outward: clad in iroko wood stained to match the walnut inside, punctuated by circular carvings that reference speaker cones, and marked by a glowing lamp that sets the tone before you step inside.
Coffee is roasted in house and treated with the same care as the vinyl collection that spins each day. Matcha comes directly from Japanese growers, and the food is simple, rooted in everyday Spanish staples: pastries, tomato toast, and Iberian cold cuts sourced from local suppliers. The restraint of the menu mirrors the restraint of the design. Both are focused, direct, and stripped of excess, offering only what feels essential.
Jaç Hi-Fi Café stands apart because it is neither a conventional café nor a nostalgic listening bar. It is a hybrid, a space where design, architecture, and sound converge around daily rituals. The bar doubles as instrument, the seating doubles as sculpture, the lighting doubles as artwork. What results is an environment that feels as precise as it is relaxed, where time slows and attention sharpens. In an age dominated by screens and headphones, Jaç reminds visitors of the tactile power of wood, vinyl, and the sound of a room alive with music. – Bill Tikos
Design: Isern Serra Studio
Furniture and bar: Fusteria Vidal
Lighting: Antoni Arola for Santa & Cole
Lamp: Jordi Miralbell & Mariona Reventós
Art: Chidy Wayne
Speakers: Bloom Island
