Café restaurants in Caribbean Islands
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A
Museo del Chocolate
Chocolate addicts beware. This quirky ‘museum’ in the heart of Habana Vieja offers a lethal dose of chocolate, chocolate and yet more chocolate. (And it’s all made on the premises too.) Situated – with no irony intended – on the corner of narrow Calle Amargura (Bitterness St), this venerable sweet-toothed establishment is actually more a café than a museum, with a small cluster of marble tables set among an interesting assortment of chocolate paraphernalia. Not surprisingly everything on the delicious menu contains one all-pervading ingredient – have it hot, cold, white, dark, rich, or smooth, the stuff is divine whatever way you choose.
reviewed
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B
Café de las Infusiones
Wedged into Calle Mercaderes, this recently restored Habaguanex coffee house is a caffeine addict’s heaven; it boasts a wonderful resident pianist, too. Fancier than your average Cuban coffee bar and more comprehensive than the Escorial, you can order more than a dozen different cuppas here, including Irish coffee (CUC$3.50), punch coffee (CUC$5), mocha (CUC$1), cappuccino (CUC$1.75) and so on.
reviewed
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La Casa de Los Pasteliollos
After seeing the sorry excuse for what passes for pasteliollos elsewhere – dry as dirt and trapped under a merciless heat lamp– you might not recognize the namesake of this seaside patio restaurant. The ambitious variations of the fried staple (shark? octopus? pizza?) are made to order, arriving as greasy, seafood-stuffed slices of heaven. More ample, healthful options are also lovingly made, based around fresh catches. Add in the view of crashing waves and dreamy hammocks tied between palms, and this is the best lunch spot on the south coast.
reviewed
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La Playa Minimarket
Run by brothers Evan and Irving, this little place is a well-situated (though not too well-stocked) bar and grill/minimarket, though the latter is only evident from a stock of dusty cans, mosquito repellent and dish soap. The food here is certainly a family affair: homemade sandwiches criolla and blood sausage come steaming from the tiny small kitchen, and the food is available to go. The beer is cheap and the locals feisty; they dance to a TV in the corner playing videos of old salsa bands. This is the ideal place to get away from the other tourists.
reviewed
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Gap Cafe Bed & Breakfast
On the hillside at 1280m near Hardwar Gap, just below the entrance to Holywell Recreation Area, the Gap Café Bed & Breakfast's cafe is a fabulous place to rest and take in the vistas over a soda or cappuccino. It offers dining either indoors or alfresco on a wooden terrace. A ‘Jamaican special’ breakfast costs US$12, and afternoon high tea is also served (US$25). The eclectic lunch menu includes curried Caribbean shrimp, smoked pork chops, curry goat and sandwiches. Dinner is by reservation only.
reviewed
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C
Café Cala’o
It looks just like any other small coffee bar you might roll into in Chicago or Seattle, but in reality Café Cala’o is very different. There are two main reasons for this: the Puerto Rican coffee – which is hand-picked from various small farms in the Central Mountains – is smooth, earthy and not at all bitter, and the people who confect it are trained experts who know as much about coffee as an oenologist knows about wine. The muffins aren’t bad either.
reviewed
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Café Aubergine
Also called Moneague Tavern, this restaurant is in a 250-year-old tavern 1km south of the small crossroads town of Moneague. Tasteful art, china and real silverware abound. The menu is written on parchment and consists of Mediterranean-influenced Jamaican nouvelle cuisine, such as crayfish Provençal, chicken in coconut curry sauce, and roast lamb Provençal. Leave room for the chocolate gateau. The cafe hosts an Oktoberfest Party with German fare. Reservations are required.
reviewed
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Cafeteria El Aleman
If you’re of the mindset that you’re not truly vacationing in the Caribbean until you’re sipping a high-octane rum drink out of a coconut, this tiny roadside cafeteria is the answer to your prayers. Patrons park themselves on stools at the shoulder of the road, choose their coconut (and their poison – the house recommends Cutty Shark) and order thick, homemade sandwiches and sundry comida criollas.
reviewed
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Café EI Escorial
Opening out onto Plaza Vieja and encased in a finely restored colonial mansion, there’s something definitively European about El Escorial. Among some of the best caffeine infusions in the city served here are café cubano, café con leche, frappé, coffee liquor and even daiquirí de café. There’s also a sweet selection of delicate pastries.
reviewed
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Cinco Esquinas
Looking for somewhere to eat in Regla is like looking for the Niagara Falls in the Sahara. Bring a packed lunch! If desperation sets in, there are drinks and a few edible tidbits available at this Palmares place situated on ‘Five Corners’ in between the Parque Guaicanamar and the Colina Lenin. There’s a vastly unhealthy chicken booth nearby.
reviewed
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Selina’s
An outstanding breakfast spot that enjoys many repeat customers for the callaloo and cheese omelettes, banana pancakes, killer smoothies and hand-roasted coffee. The lunch menu features salads and burgers, though the pièce de résistance is the cheese-and-vegetable quesadilla. Sundays see a jazz band that draws a mixed crowd of locals and visitors.
reviewed
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E
Café Santo Domingo
Tucked away upstairs above Habana Vieja’s best bakery – and encased in one of its oldest buildings – this laid-back cafe is aromatic, tasty and light on the wallet. Check out the delicious fruit shakes, huge sandwich especial, or smuggle some cakes upstairs to enjoy over a steaming cup of café con leche (coffee with warm milk).
reviewed
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Restaurante San Jacinto
At the Gilligan’s Island ferry landing, this beach bar and eatery has sandwiches, seafood and chicken, as well as outdoor tables and bench seating. It gets mobbed on weekends with day-trippers going or returning from the ferry. Order cheap to-go options outside for lunch, or head to the nautical interior for a more expensive dinner.
reviewed
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F
Pastelería Francesa
This cafe has all the ingredients of a Champs-Élysées classic: a great location in Parque Central, waiters in waistcoats, and myriad pastries displayed in glass cases. But the authentic French flavor is ruined somewhat by the swarming jineteras who roll in here with their European sugar daddies for cigarettes and strong coffee.
reviewed
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Café Atenas
Atenas is used to receiving the odd stray tourist on a moped-trip from Varadero and can rustle up a rather delicious bruschetta at short notice. Settle down in the clean, if bland, interior with the local students, taxi drivers and hotel workers on a day off, and contemplate the everyday occurrences of Plaza Vigía outside.
reviewed
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Café Amapola
Ah the view! Watch crashing surf lash the pastel-colored shantytown of La Perla as you perch on the upstairs terrace at Café Amapola. Welcome to Old San Juan’s only oceanfronted eating establishment, an unpretentious café-cum-restaurant that sells memorable homegrown coffee and tasty criolla-spiced appetizers.
reviewed
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G-Café
This café is the ultimate student hangout, with arty wall drawings and a modernist mural, a patio with lots of greenery, and more than 400 books and magazines to read, borrow and buy. As well as deftly concocted mojitos and chunky sandwiches, there is trova (traditional poetic singing), jazz and poetry.
reviewed
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I
Cafetería Las Enramadas
It's the usual fried chicken, ice cream and fries at this place in the northwest corner of Plaza de Dolores - a kind of El Rápido in disguise. The terrace is shady, the beers affordable and the hours long: perfect jinetero turf. Good place for a hair-of-the-dog or for drowning a hangover in grease.
reviewed
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El Buen Café
A lifesaver on Hwy 2, this no-nonsense cafeteria-style restaurant is open all hours (nearly) and serves cheap but tasty comida criolla with plenty of options. You can grab a 5:30am coffee and pastry here or a 9pm rice and beans; food and service are consistent throughout the day and the locals love it.
reviewed
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J
Cafetería El Parque
This open terrace gets regularly drenched in those familiar Baracoa rain showers, but that doesn’t seem to detract from its popularity. The favored meeting place of just about everyone in town, you’re bound to end up here at some point tucking into spaghetti and pizza as you watch the world go by.
reviewed
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Café Habano
A gritty, no-nonsense coffee bar on Calle Mercaderes, frequented mainly by Cubans, the Habano serves sweet, strong early-morning café cubana (strong, sweet black coffee) that gets plunked down straight in front of you on the bar. Don’t expect anything fancy here - like, um, milk.
reviewed
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Annie’s Place
Annie’s is a bar and restaurant with great empanadillas (dough stuffed with meat or fish), lobster soup, fish salad and homemade burgers. Right on the water, it’s very popular in the early evening when young kids on double dates drop by to play billiards and watch the sun set.
reviewed
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K
Cafetería Las Arecas
Nestled in the garden patio of La Maison, the mansion-turned-mod-shopping-center, this cafetería has an inexpensive menu with spaghetti, pizzas and chicken dishes. Fish filets start at CUC$5.50. The fancier dining-room restaurant in the rear part of the main building is open until 10pm.
reviewed
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Adwa
In the unlikely setting of the second floor of a shopping mall, this small vegetarian eatery with a changing menu doles out salads and excellent, filling dishes like curried tofu in addition to fresh fruit juices and smoothies. Grab a vegetable or soy patty to go.
reviewed
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Doña Luisa
The best place for cheap empanadas in town, nothing costs over two bucks. In terms of atmosphere, this beat-up cafeteria doesn’t have much polish, but it more than makes up for it in character. The empanadas with pulpo (octopus) are the best.
reviewed
