Restaurants in Eastern Cuba
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Paladar Salón Tropical
The city’s best paladar is a few blocks south of Hotel Las Américas on a pleasant rooftop terrace with fairy lights and decent views. The food is plentiful and tasty with a varying menu of succulent smoked pork, chicken and sometimes lamb, served with congrí (rice flecked with black beans), salad and plantains (green bananas) and delicious yuca con mojo (starchy root vegetable with garlic lime sauce). Reservations are a good idea as this is a favorite spot for young Cuban women who come here with their 50-plus-year-old foreign sugar daddies.
reviewed
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El Barracón
El Barracón opened its doors to reignite the roots of Afro-Cuban culture and cuisine. The restaurant’s interior, a mix of atmospheric Santería shrine and cimarrón (runaway slave), is intriguing and the creative food is even better. Try the delicious tostones (fried plantain patties) filled with chorizo and cheese.
reviewed
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Casa del Chocolate
It’s enough to make even Willy Wonka wonder. You’re sitting next to a chocolate factory but, more often than not, there’s none to be had in this bizarre little casa just off the main square. The quickest way to check out Baracoa’s on-off supply situation is to stick your head around the door and utter the word ‘chocolate’ to one of the bored-looking waitresses. No hay equals ‘no, ’ a faint nod equals ‘yes.’ On a good day it sells chocolate ice cream and the hot stuff in mugs. For all its foibles, it’s a Baracoa rite of passage.
reviewed
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Restaurante El Morro
A gleaming, white plate mounted in a glass case on the wall announces that Paul McCartney once ate here during a whistle-stop 2000 visit (he flew in for four hours from the Turks and Caicos). According to the waiters, the world’s most famous vegetarian made do with an omelette. For meat-eaters, the complete comida criolla lunch (CUC$12) is a better bet, a filling spread that includes soup, roast pork, a small dessert and one drink. The spectacular cliff-side location offers occasional views of breaching whales.
reviewed
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D
Restaurante Don Antonio
Plaza Dolores is a case of nice location, shame about the food. The best of a bad bunch is Restaurante Don Antonio, next to Cafeteria Las Enramados, which offers everything from mixed grill to lobster. Next door is Restaurante La Perla del Dragón, offering chop suey and chow mein with a rather painful Cuban twist. Beyond that is Restaurante Teresina, with inexpensive pizza and spaghetti. These places never seem to have customers. Hmmm.
reviewed
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Pizza Nova
Pizza deliciosa and lasagna formidable, ravioli and garlic bread; mamma mia, this has to be the number-one option for breaking away from all that chicken and pork. For some inexplicable reason this otherwise venerable establishment is always chock-a-block with nubile jineteras hand in hand with their 55-year-old balding foreign sugar daddies.
reviewed
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Restaurante Zunzún
Dine in bygone bourgeois style in this urban mansion-turned-restaurant. Zunzún, in the once upscale Vista Alegre neighborhood, has always been one of Santiago’s best restaurants when it comes to food and ambience. Exotic dishes include chicken curry, paella or a formidable cheese plate and cognac. Expect professional, attentive service and entertaining troubadours.
reviewed
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Paladar El Colonial
The town’s only surviving paladar has been knocking out good food for years with an exotic Baracoan twist. Still run out of a handsome wooden clapboard house on Calle José Martí, the menu has become a bit more limited in recent times (less octopus and more chicken), though you still get the down-to-earth service and the delicious coconut sauce.
reviewed
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La Teresina
One in a triumvirate of inviting-looking restaurants along the north side of Plaza de Dolores, La Teresina doesn’t quite live up to its splendid colonial setting. But the terrace is shady, the beers affordable and the food – a familiar mix of spaghetti, pizza and chicken – plentiful enough to take the edge off a hungry appetite.
reviewed
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Santiago 1900
In the former Bacardí residence you can dine on the standard chicken, fish or pork in a lush dining room replete with a slightly abandoned colonial air. The menu’s in pesos, meaning few dishes should cost you more than the equivalent of CUC$2. There are also, not surprisingly, a couple of good bars here selling mojitos etc.
reviewed
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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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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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Cafetería Las Américas
A local hangout of sorts, on the traffic circle near Hotel Las Américas, this cafetería terrace does good basics: chicken, spaghetti and pork for under CUC$2. Inside is the affiliated restaurant with decent full meals of comida criolla (Creole food, usually rice, beans and pork) for CUC$5.
reviewed
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Café de la Catedral
A frigidly air-conditioned new cafe sheltered beneath the cathedral that offers 24 different types of coffee – with a biscuit, if you’re lucky. There are some coffee-farming artifacts scattered around the interior and a colorful cafetal (coffee farm) mural emblazoned on the wall.
reviewed
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Coppelia La Arboleda
Santiago’s ice-cream cathedral is a little out of the center, not that this lessens the queue-length. Yell out ¿Quién es último? (who is last?) and take your place on the Av de los Libertadores side of the parlor. Milkshakes are sometimes sold from the outside window.
reviewed
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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.
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Pan.com
Havana’s refreshingly efficient fast (ish) -food chain has just opened a small branch in Santiago, but the staff has yet to cotton onto the chain’s slick service. Arrive with low expectations and see what’s available on the ostensibly long menu.
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Cafe Palmares
A cool courtyard setting under flowering trees, across from Meliá Santiago de Cuba, is complemented by an extensive menu with many egg, pizza, sandwich and chicken options. Fresh juice and strong espresso make this a good breakfast or postbar choice.
reviewed
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La Perla del Dragón
Santiago’s token Chinese restaurant doesn’t quite match up to the diversity of Havana’s Barrio Chino, but it’s a change from the standard chicken, pork, fish triumvirate and enjoys a pleasant setting on shady Plaza de Dolores.
reviewed
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Paladar Las Gallegas
This place has been here for donkey’s years in Santiago-paladar terms, bashing out OK potions of pork, chicken and sometimes carnero (lamb). There are a couple of tables on a narrow balcony overlooking the street.
reviewed
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Ristorante Italiano La Fontana
Pizza deliciosa (CUC$5 and up) and lasagna formidable (CUC$8), ravioli and garlic bread (CUC$1); mamma mía, this has to be the number-one option for breaking away from all that chicken and pork!
reviewed
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Restaurante La Punta
In an old fort overlooking the Atlantic, this historic restaurant now run by Gaviota was temporarily closed at the time of writing after the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Ike. It was due to reopen in 2009.
reviewed
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Dulcería del Goloso
Got bored waiting in the queues at Coppelia? Head a few blocks along Victoriano Garzón, to this less-frenetic pit stop where you should be enjoying your copa de helado within minutes.
reviewed
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Pizzería Baracoesa
A recent renovation (ie new tablecloths) have upped the ante a little at this peso place, but it’s still got a long way to go to tempt you out of your casa particular.
reviewed
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Supermercado Plaza de Marte
One of the better-stocked supermarkets in town, with a great ice-cream selection and cheap bottled water. It’s in the northeastern corner of Plaza de Marte.
reviewed
