Must see entertainment in Havana

Top Choice

If only every city had a cultural venue as wide-ranging, inclusive and downright revolutionary as Havana’s unique art factory. The brainchild of Cuban…

Top Choice

Aside from its funky murals and psychedelic art shops, the main reason to come to this alleyway, Havana's high temple of Afro-Cuban culture, is the…

Top Choice

Havana's fabulously renovated 'great' theater is open again and offering up the best in Cuban dance and music. Its specialty is ballet (it's the…

Top Choice

One rung down from Marianao's world-famous Tropicana, but cheaper and closer to the city center, the nightly Cabaret Parisién in the Hotel Nacional is…

An institution since its 1939 opening, the world-famous Tropicana was among the few bastions of Havana's Las Vegas–style nightlife to survive the…

What pass for hipsters in Havana tend to congregate at this live-music venue known locally as No Se lo Digas a Nadie (Don't Tell Anyone) for the weekly…

Founded in 1962, the high-energy Conjunto Folklórico Nacional de Cuba specializes in Afro-Cuban dancing (all of the drummers are Santería priests). See…

One in a duo of long-standing and highly lauded jazz clubs, the Vixen and the Crow opens its doors nightly at 10pm to long lines of committed music fiends…

This upscale joint, improbably located in a shopping mall overlooking the Malecón, is a kind of jazz supper club, with dinner tables and a decent menu. At…

Plaza de San Francisco de Asís' glorious church, which dates from 1738, has been reincarnated as a 21st-century museum and concert hall. The old nave…

Known also as the 'theater of a hundred doors' (in reference to the French windows adorning its exterior), this neoclassical gem is a masterpiece of…

One of the twin pillars of Havana's cultural life, the Teatro Nacional de Cuba on Plaza de la Revolución is the modern rival to the Gran Teatro in Centro…

In an old shirt factory abandoned in the 1990s, when it became a rubbish dump and public urinal, this new state-sponsored community arts project was…

Some label it a tourist trap, but this restaurant–entertainment space bivouacked upstairs in a deceptively dilapidated Havana tenement plays some of the…

If you're looking for something inherently Cuban, tag along with the local habaneros for some very caliente action at this outdoor venue known…

Launched with a concert by renowned jazz pianist Chucho Valdés in 1994, this Miramar favorite is run by national Cuban recording company EGREM, and the…

Once the headquarters of Havana's alternative artistic and sexual scene, the 'one-eyed cat' is now a nexus for middle-aged lovers of traditional Cuban…

The largest stadium in Cuba holds 55,000 people and was built before the revolution, in 1946. It’s the home of Havana’s widely revered (or reviled,…

This elegant pink mansion built in 1926 by Juan Pedro Baró, a rich landowner involved in a scandalous marriage with high-society belle Catalina Lasa, is…

Occupying the site of the old Rodi Cinema on Línea, Teatro Mella offers one of Havana's most comprehensive programs, including an international ballet…