Top choice in Vedado
Talk about a hidden gem. The unsigned Café Laurent is a sophisticated fine-dining restaurant encased, incongruously, in a glaringly ugly 1950s apartment block next to the Focsa building. Starched white tablecloths, polished glasses and lacy drapes furnish the bright modernist interior, while seafood risotto and artistically presented pork sautéed with dry fruit and red wine headline the Cuban-Spanish menu.
Take the creaky lift up five floors for a culinary surprise.
1.62 MILES
Havana's main cemetery (a national monument), one of the largest in the Americas, is renowned for its striking religious iconography and elaborate marble…
1.43 MILES
The Malecón, Havana's evocative 7km-long sea drive, is one of the city's most soulful and quintessentially Cuban thoroughfares, and long a favored meeting…
1.59 MILES
The incomparable Capitolio Nacional is Havana's most ambitious and grandiose building, constructed after the post-WWI boom ('Dance of the Millions')…
2.04 MILES
Habana Vieja's most uniform square is a museum to Cuban baroque, with all the surrounding buildings, including the city's beguiling asymmetrical cathedral…
Castillo de los Tres Santos Reyes Magnos del Morro
1.81 MILES
This wave-lashed fort with its emblematic lighthouse was erected between 1589 and 1630 to protect the entrance to Havana harbor from pirates and foreign…
7.27 MILES
Where does art go after Antoni Gaudí? For a hint, head west from central Havana to the seemingly low-key district of Jaimanitas, where artist José Fuster…
2.18 MILES
Laid out in 1559, Plaza Vieja is Havana's most architecturally eclectic square, where Cuban baroque nestles seamlessly next to Gaudí-inspired art nouveau…
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
1.68 MILES
Spread over two campuses, the Bellas Artes is arguably the finest art gallery in the Caribbean. The Arte Cubano building contains the most comprehensive…
0.1 MILES
Unmissable on the Havana skyline, the modernist Edificio Focsa was built between 1954 and 1956 in a record 28 months using pioneering computer technology…
0.2 MILES
This classic modernist hotel – the former Havana Hilton – was commandeered by Fidel Castro's revolutionaries in 1959 just nine months after it had opened,…
0.22 MILES
Far more than just a hotel, the Nacional, built in 1930 as a copy of the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, is a national monument and one of Havana's…
4. Monumento a las Víctimas del Maine
0.22 MILES
West beyond the Hotel Nacional is a monument (1926) to the 266 American marines who were killed when the battleship USS Maine blew up mysteriously in…
0.28 MILES
Tucked away behind the US Interests Section is this art deco tower, which looks like the Empire State Building with the bottom 70 floors chopped off. One…
0.34 MILES
Opposite the Monumento a Julio Antonio Mella outside the Universidad de la Habana are black-and-white Mella portraits permanently mounted on the wall in…
0.35 MILES
Cuba has three synagogues, serving a Jewish population of approximately 1500. The main community center and library are located here, where the friendly…
0.36 MILES
Founded by Dominican monks in 1728 and secularized in 1842, Havana's university began life in Habana Vieja before moving to its present site in 1902. The…