Where are we with Cuba?

Where are you with Cuba? Have you been?

Where are we with Cuba? Where are you with Cuba — have you been? Trump’s election, Covid-related travel freezes and injuries to State Department employees refroze any thaws in Cuban American relations that emerged during the Obama presidency. And for an American to visit that beautiful country and spend time with its people can be a transformative experience: One person, from one country, representing their own blend of cultures, meets another citizen of the world on their home turf.

This is why travel is such a positive force for growth and change.

We create a powerful voice for globalism and international understanding every time we head out the door with a suitcase. Isolating Cuba may have serious geopolitical ramifications that are ripped from todays headlines, this column is for all the foreign policy geeks like me that are interested in this stuff.

I want us all to go to Cuba.

By sharing food, we experience another culture in more unique, personal ways, that can’t be understood by eating in hotel lobbies. It needs to be experienced by breaking bread out on the proverbial street, with real people, in truly local haunts, eating honest and authentic cuisine. By focusing on our commonalities, like our mutual love of food, we can share life with people we just met in lands far away. We forget our differences, and the political matters of our daily life that often can lead to conflict and misunderstanding. Cross the first barrier, share a meal, and the next conversation can safely be had. Trust me on this. If you are going, or want to, here is the US government page to consult.

Now you cannot go to Cuba without proof of vaccination papers, and while “tourists are prohibited by statute” as the site says, there are many ways to visit this island nation.

Let me put it this way: one or two mouse clicks and you can go via Canada, Mexico etc.. And I think you should.

Look what happened when The Wall came down in Berlin, or in 1971 when the U.S. State Department lifted the ban on travel to China leading up to the Presidential visit there in ’73, birthing “the week that changed the world”. A lot happened over dinner and dumplings I can assure you. Mutual distrust with formerly closed worlds have been replaced by an advancing understanding and ongoing free exchange of ideas because opportunity feeds relationship. I am of the mind that it can happen now with Cuba, a country 80 miles from our back door.

I travel to Cuba with an open mind and an open heart.

I spent time in Havana, lounged at the Nacional, stayed in the room that Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra honeymooned in, prowled the music clubs, danced in the streets every night, visited with artists and musicians, and strolled the storied ancient cobblestoned streets of Vieja Habana. I spent time with the people of Cuba from one end of the country to another, and saw for myself the beauty of everything the Cuban people have to offer our world: Patience, resilience, hope and fortitude for starters.

I firmly believe more than ever that restrictions and barriers do nothing but foment misunderstanding and makes life tougher on citizens of both our countries. We need a free flowing exchange of ideas, and the people of Cuba feel the same way. I always ask.

We have a rare opportunity here to see a country on our doorstep re-develop in many ways, and the stagnating isolation of the last 60 years has been our loss. Canadians and Europeans, South Americans and Africans all travel safely to Cuba every day. We are the losers here, and proudly I can say we have a lot to offer Cuba.

As someone who aches to see walls removed, as someone who feels that travel is a game changer for remaking our world in a more positive way, I can also assure you that Cuba is a once-in-a-lifetime travel experience. The country isn’t diluted or polluted by the corrosive aspects of globalism that prevent us from seeing what a people are really like, or how they truly live.

Some of what I saw was ugly, in some cases Cuba can be seen as a Paradise-Prison. 99% of Cubans can’t get on a boat even to go fishing, beef is not available anywhere I saw, markets are not plentiful despite many resources, fresh milk is not available in Havana for example (it’s all shelf stable), but the country is changing at breakneck speed, and the sooner you get to see it for yourself the better. Once the Palm Curtain rises, the country is changed forever, for good and for bad. Go decide for yourself. Go as quickly as you can.

Cuba teems with fabulous nightlife. 

Discovering phenomenal food proved more difficult. The majority of restaurants are state-run, and these restaurants are really pretty bad. Restaurateurs must purchase their food from the State, must adhere to the portion control administered by the State, in many cases only using the recipes mandated by the State. The servers, many of whom have never even eaten in restaurant before, come from State-run service schools and are expected to give tourists Western-style service. With a few exceptions, which I will get to later, avoid government-run restaurants like the plague.

Instead, try eating at one of the many paladares.

These are privately-owned family run underground restaurants. This type of eatery emerged on the food scene in the nineties when Castro relaxed tourism requirements. The resulting curiosity boom led to a huge demand for a place for people to have a meal. The government, however, is still very involved in the business.  Paladares are one of the only Cuban businesses that pay a hefty tax to the government, essentially profit sharing,  and they must adhere to a strict code of conduct. For instance, a paladar cannot have more than twelve seats and must serve rustic, Cuban food. I did discover that often times rules are bent… wildly and fantastically bent… but if caught, owners can face serious jail time. Unless those in charge of running the country enjoy the food!

La Guarida, arguably the most well known of all the paladares.

It’s upstairs in an old mansion where the Spanish film Strawberry and Chocolate was made. This faded, crumbling 200-year-old building with marble balustrades and classical statuary was once a large, single family home. Currently, it houses over a hundred people, some who live in squalor, sharing teeny rooms way in the back of the building.

I crept all over the old palazzo and saw some shocking squalid things most having to do with deplorable living conditions. But many other Cubans live in beautiful rooms up front, in what I found out was the result of a first come, first serve housing lottery. If Cubans want to move (they can) they have to trade spaces with someone else. Good if you live in a nice spot already, bad if you don’t. But on the third floor, you’ll find one of the country’s best paladares. 

Since La Guarida is privately owned, paying huge license fees and ‘taxes’, you can eat like a king. 

The Cuban chef at the time was Enrique Nunez del Valle,  tight-lipped about how he’d managed to check out food around the world, but it was clear that he had some serious training. We ate a sautéed, grilled piece of tuna, skewered on sugar cane over a lobster salad that belied a real eye for modern plating style. Nothing rustic here.

We ate an eggplant and goats cheese timbale (they called it a tart) that layered paper thin slices of roasted vegetables. Their eggplant terrine was as good as anything I’ve ever had in Europe or San Francisco for that matter; the octopus salad at La Guarida rivals any seafood restaurant in Spain.

And clearly, they are cooking European-styled food using local ingredients for a discerning crowd. European style food, European-style décor with crazy little antiques everywhere piled high like you would imagine Auntie Mame’s house would look like. The pictures on their hallway wall featured every icon you could imagine, everyone from Benicio Del Toro to Rob Schneider to Steven Spielberg’s pictures are on the wall. It’s like the Carnegie Deli in there.

Suffice to say there are as many paladares as there are enterprising Cubans who love to cook. Ask the locals, you will get the best suggestions. It was a server at La Guarida who told me about El Aljibe.

I promised weeks ago to tell you about El Aljibe, a state-run restaurant that is the exception to the rule.

I’d long ago lost my patience for state-run eateries, but I was pleasantly surprised with El Aljibe. When we drove up the first time, I knew this was my kind of place. The restaurant opened about 90 years ago, and since its inception, they’ve specialized in one item: Roast chicken. 

It comes with five or six different side dishes, rice and beans, plantains… the usual suspects. But the miracle of El Aljibe is their lemony pan sauce, drizzled on these golden rotisseried beauties.

I asked one of our local friends how this restaurant is able to maintain its quality compared to the other state-run, crap-tastic restaurants. The answer could be a scene in a movie. Apparently, El Aljibe ranked highly with the upper classes in the old days, but was snatched away from the family who ran it during the 1959 revolution. The new political elites and party officials, who loved the old restaurant, were so outraged post revolucion over the decrease in quality that the government struck up a side deal with the original owners to take it back and run it. That is how things work in a dictatorship. 

El Aljibe is singular, a state-run restaurant with extremely high quality product and extremely high quality food. I guess everyone needs a good must go-to place for roast chicken.

Have you been to Cuba? Do you want to go? Share in the comments!

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