Andina Cafe

Andina is small, Colombian, and serious about both. Named for a mountain in Colombia, the shop uses Colombian beans and stocks the pastries that go with them: guava and cheese empanadas, bunuelos, pandebono, plus a turkey and Swiss croissant for the bigger appetite. The caramel iced latte gets repeat orders. The Cafe Campesino is the one to try if you want to taste what the place is about.

The downtown Framingham space is clean and cozy with new furniture and a Latin music soundtrack, beautifully decorated by the people who run it. One customer noted the music could be quieter, which is fair feedback for anyone trying to take a call. Wi-Fi holds up well enough for a long reading session, and dog owners bring their dogs inside as a matter of routine.

The Colombian-bakery side of the menu is the reason to make this a destination rather than a convenience stop. The guava-and-cheese empanada is the order to start with. The bunuelos come out warm. The pandebono carries the kind of chew that tells you it was not pulled from a freezer that morning. Coffee gets the same care. Colombian beans make it into a Cafe Campesino that lands closer to a tinto than to a bottomless drip, which is the right register for the food.

One caveat worth knowing. Some customers expecting Colombian-bakery pricing have flagged the cost: $3.75 for a bunuelo lands higher than what you would pay in a less coffee-shop-coded environment. That is the trade-off for getting Colombian pastries served in a downtown specialty cafe rather than a strip-mall panaderia. If you accept the framing, the food earns it.

For a Massachusetts town that does not have many options for Colombian coffee and pastries done seriously, Andina is the address. The dog-friendly room and the laptop-friendly Wi-Fi make it a place to stay for a while rather than rush through. The music is the one variable. Bring headphones if you are working through a deadline.