Not the temperature but cool as in hip AF. I thought of suave but looking for more Dean Martin/Steve McQueen-y.
I just asked my Mexico-born coworker, and she said, ‘Que padre’. I said, ‘That’s weird.’ She said, ‘Yeah, it is.’
There’s a lot depending on which country you’re in.
Qué guay
Qué padre
Qué genial
Qué chevere
Qué chido
Qué bacano
and many others are used by different groups of spanish speakers to mean cool. As far as I know, qué padre is well-known but strongly associated with Mexican spanish.
Makes me think of jazzy epithets like “daddy”, “daddy-o”, etc.
Are these two-word phrases basically treated in Spanish as an adjective in their own right? Is a “cool guy” “un hombre qué padre”. A “cool car” “un auto qué genial”?
Chevere is generally Colombian–bacano and genial are used more in Bogota.
del putas, (which is somewhat vulgar), is used on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, maybe elsewhere, too.
I had the same thought.
Inner Stickler listed them as interjections. As an attributive adjective you wouldn’t use que. Also, it probably will vary a lot how much one is used attributively vs. as an interjection.
Also, some might be used more predicatively.
In Chile, it was usually “bacán” or “buena onda” and occasionally “cachete” or “pulento”. Most of my experience there was more than a decade ago though.
It would seem difficult to translate all possible nuances. In English, a cool person may well be suave, but he or she is also calm and in control (the opposite of hot-headed), as well as being fashionable (the hipster slang the OP was asking about). Spanish and French probably understand the word “cool”, though.
Chido.
No, it would be “un hombre padre” (which does not mean he’s a father) or even “una mujer padre” (all these adjectives are invariant, and yes you can also use madre like this with both sexes and any genders); the “qué” would be part of an exclamation in response to something padre that’s been said.
Aside from by country, the translation also varies with time because of course it’s not cool to use the same word for cool that your parents or your older brothers do, but they’re all mutually understandable. And yes, one of the words used is “cool”, in multiple languages. French sample.
The first culebrón from Latinoamérica (as opposed to Made in Spain) which was broadcast in Spain was Cristal, back when people from Venezuela could afford to make telenovelas. Soon the ratings were through the roof, and so was the amount of people who swore they didn’t watch it but who knew all its ins and outs and exclaimed “¡qué chévere!”… uuuh, soooo… you don’t watch Cristal but everybody you live with does, or something?
The English suave and the Spanish suave aren’t cognates, they’re false friends. Maybe your word comes from ours, but if so it’s a misunderstanding: Spanish suave means soft, either as in fluffly or as in silky. Marshmallows are suave; Steve McQueen is un duro (“duro” means “hard” or “tough” depending on context). It’s a physical attribute (generally of an object), not a quality of behavior. If you say a dude is suave you’d get some strange looks and need to explain what the hell are you exactly talking about, do you mean his skin? And if so and unless this is an ad for Nivea, uuuhhh, TMI? Note: this refers to people whose primary language really is Spanish, not to those who if they drop a hammer on their toe cuss in English or Spanglish.
In Castilian Spanish we use “mola”.
I don’t know the exact etymology, but it kinda translates as “it grinds”. Don’t look at me, language is weird.
Thanks for the help. Complex subject I guess.
This probably has a lot to do with it.
Obligatory Cannonball Run reference 
“And those ‘priests’ …”
“… weren’t fathers. They were …”
“Mothers!”
I know in music, all boundaries are fair game … but your statement puts “Rico Suave” in a new light.
FWIW, the singer Gerardo Mejia was born in Ecuador, lived there until he was 12, and then moved to Los Angeles when he was 12. In the song’s context, “suave” seems to suggest the same thing as the slang use of English “smooth”: “self-assured, non-awkward, skilled in ‘the game of love’”.
In American High School Spanish the term is “muy frio” 
Hmm . . . well, *Se dice de mi *. . . . but I never denied it.