Rustik

The sign over the door reads bread · trail · coffee · cycle, and it is not decoration. Rustik is a village bakery in Bellcaire d’Empordà that decided cyclists and runners were its people: its own jerseys and caps on the shelf inside, branded cups on the counter, and most mornings a row of bikes leaning along the façade while the tables outside fill up with riders in kit.

What comes out of that counter is not standard village fare. The two things everyone orders are the filled croissant and a fruit bowl with a coffee, and there is toast buried under banana, berries and seeds, plates that photograph well and, more to the point, actually refuel a group of eight. Four and a half stars from three hundred-odd reviews, in a village of a few streets.

Bellcaire sits on the flat between Girona and the coast, which makes this the stop for an Empordà morning rather than a mountain day: no climb to earn it, nothing to suffer at altitude, just a good reason to point the ride that way.