SPIRIT OF HAVANA
La Guarida is easy to miss. The
entrance is a cavernous, crumbling
foyer of a once-grand palace now
empty, with
nothing but a
chipped
marble
staircase and a
forlorn goddess
statue whose
arms and head
were lost long
ago. But up two
flights of stairs
is one of
Havana’s best
dining spots.
La Guarida is a
paladar, a private
restaurant sanctioned by the Cuban
government in the 1990s, which has
become renowned for infusing
traditional Cuban dishes with
techniques imported from France, Italy
and Spain. Plates emerge, artistically
arranged with, perhaps, longfin tuna in a
sugarcane-laced sauce, suckling pig
drizzled with zesty orange-lemon
reduction, or a tender tarte tatin made
with mangoes and coconut.
The restaurant’s creator, Enrique
Núñez, grew up in this vast, marble-
clad palace when, after the 1959
revolution, it was converted from the
residence of a well-to-do doctor into
apartments for local families. ‘When I
told my friends that I wanted to make a
restaurant in an area of Havana that is
not touristy, they said I was crazy,’
Enrique says with a little laugh,
nodding to the crowded tables. ‘It was
a good decision, but at that time it
didn’t look like it at all.’
The restaurant business in Havana is
far from easy. Shortages of basic foods
are a constant battle – one day, there
may be no eggs to buy; the next day, no
salt. To combat this, Enrique sends
three staff members to scour markets
across the city daily.
‘After the revolution, all of the
buildings, the cars, became stuck in
time – and gastronomy was the same,’
he says. ‘Until 1996 we were not
allowed to have private restaurants;
everywhere was the same food. Now
the city has 500 paladares, we have
competition, and we are slowly
reviving the heart of Cuban cuisine.’
O Mains from £11 (laguarida.com).The staircase leading up
to La Guarida. Inset The
restaurant’s suckling pig