I wake up early, fascinated by my first trip to Brasilia, the wonderful and mystical Brazilian capital, inaugurated on April 21, 1960 by then President Juscelino Kubitschek. The modest hotel where I am is an incessant swarm of workers. Early in the morning they prepare a sumptuous and daily lunch, in the open air, without much protocol but with divine flavor, which reminds me of family banquets in my grandmother Fela’s patio. Among those people who walk with a quick and precise step, between laughter and camaraderie, I am pleasantly surprised to find a young Venezuelan, we immediately identify ourselves and exchange a few jubilant words in Spanish. “I’m not the only Venezuelan around here,” he confirms to me.
Walking without GPS along Rabelo Avenue, part of Villa Planalto; I want to find a bus point. I walk and my eyes and my mind try to accurately capture each person, each house, each business that I find along the way. Life flows, a man sells oranges, another souvenirs for national and foreign tourists, a lady pushes her cart with offers of juices, another entrepreneur offers chocolates. I go to a restaurant where a boy and a girl are talking, I discover that they speak in Spanish and I take the opportunity to transform the Good day! in a Good Morning! who respond to me with some surprise and affection. I ask them where I can take the bus to the city center and immediately they tell me to go two blocks and take route 104.
Crossing an intersection of streets, I look up and read: Cuban Restaurant Cellar of Havana. Without a doubt it is time to modify my itinerary, I have to know the place and know if it is a compatriot who in fact manages it; I hope so. I cross immediately, it’s early in the morning, the doors are closed, I knock on a residential entrance that serves as a parking lot, a man comes out, a Brazilian. I introduce myself, I explain my interest in meeting him, I tell him that I am Cuban, and he tells me: “If you are a Cuban as good a person as Miguel, the Chef from the restaurant, so you are very good!”. I contain my emotion, Brazilian men and women are usually very authentic, just like Cuban men and women, spontaneity characterizes us.
Then that man enters the restaurant and soon comes out with Miguel, the Chef Cuban, founder and owner of the restaurant Havana Winery. We greet each other smiling, he immediately invites me to come in, the first words we exchange are in portuñol, the force of habit prevails, little by little we are migrating to the purely Cuban language. The place is nice, it is well organized and decorated, without lavishness, but with an intimate and welcoming air. I follow Miguel to the kitchen, his favorite place, he is cooking a old clothes. I start firing off simple questions and seducing Miguel into giving me a formal interview, but a Chef whose restaurant is still emerging from the ravages of a pandemic doesn’t have much time for that. I immediately sense that the exchange will be fast and intense, there is no time to record on the phone, so I sharpen my mind and heart as we speak.
I arrived in Brazil in 2011, the truth is I had no intention of staying here, I preferred to go to the United States, everything changed when I began a courtship that grew stronger and ended in a seven-year relationship. I had studied cooking in hotel and tourism schools in Cuba and worked for several years as a chef in the Cayería Norte. When I arrived here I had sufficient qualifications and experience in cooking, hotels and restaurants; the grades weren’t worth much, but the experience was. I gradually entered the restaurant industry and worked as Chef in various businesses, in different places in Brasilia.
It has not been easy, I have always had to work a lot, in two and three shifts, resting little. Service jobs in Brazil are not very well paid, so to access some goods I have had to sacrifice. Sometimes, Brazilian work colleagues were amazed because I bought a good motorcycle, etc. and they commented that it was because I am a foreigner and I came here already with money. I smiled and explained to them that this was the product of my hard work in this country and of limiting myself to drinks, parties, to achieve my goals, because in Cuba I was not one of those from a privileged family; on the contrary, humble people who live off the bare minimum like the majority.
I think it was in 2016 or 2017 when I started trying to carry out my own entrepreneurial project. It wasn’t easy either, here in Brasilia a restaurant with Cuban specialties was something innovative. In addition, the initial capital to invest was basic, a product of my savings, for which the bet had to be very precise, assuming the risks but with a positive mind and working to make it successful. And that’s how it started Havana Winery, first in a place belonging to the Brasilia Zoo area, and then I moved here to Villa Planalto, closer to the North Wing and the Center. Initially I did it with a microentrepreneur-self-employed worker license, with the right to hire a worker, then I adhered to the microenterprise format, with more possibility of diversifying services, access to products and job hiring.
With his 39 years, Miguel shows a peculiar wisdom, I notice his determination to analyze each step, his refined and detailed tastes when preparing the menu that identifies his roots, his frank, affectionate and polite treatment, perfect ingredients to attract his loyal clientele. His strategic thinking and capacity for innovation were put to the test when the coronavirus pandemic arrived. COVID-19 in early 2020.
Imagine, when the pandemic was already stabilizing and solidifying the restaurant, it was a complete change in the paradigms that we had to offer services. Our clientele was in person, they were civil servants and workers who come here during lunch hours; That is why the challenge of starting to offer delivery services (Ifood, Uber Eats) was that our dishes have a certain presentation that distinguishes them; That is why placing them in a pot and transporting them on a motorcycle to the client, preserving the decoration, is a challenge. An important challenge, because it is about our visual identity, about what we have built as a business. The truth is, during the pandemic I had to choose to keep the minimum number of workers and reinvent myself every day to overcome the contingency, move forward and not go bankrupt.
I began to see the pandemic as a threat and a challenge, but also as a moment of opportunity, of resistance, of rethinking our potentialities. And here we are, happily, open again, still not with the normal flow before the pandemic, but resuming our services and reuniting with our clients and others who are joining us. I am articulating with other friends, thinking of expanding and perhaps moving to an area of buildings, where people also see the restaurant as a possibility for a family outing and to get out of the residential “confinement”. I am animated, I am whole! ready to move on, after more than 10 years here and a pandemic, it will not be now that I give up, on the contrary.
I listen to Miguel Padilla, the Chef from the restaurant Havana Winery, and I, who am also a Cuban emigrant, like him, cannot contain the feeling of hope and strength to continue. That inspires me, the positive, talented, hard-working, persistent people, like Miguel, and like so many Cubans in Cuba, or wandering around the world, who undertake, resist, reinvent themselves and show the national soul in its most beautiful expression. . Those who give and show pride and not pity, those who put love and not hate in what they do, who found there, here and there, and that is why they are Bem-vindos and bem-vindas! to Brazil, or to dozens of countries.
In the background, perhaps tiny and confusing, remains the illusion, the utopia that this diasporic Cuba, that those (other) homelands that are built with lives, families, jobs, businesses, achievements and also sadness, can have more every day seasoned dialogues of love, faith, future and hope, both with those who remain on the Island, with those who for many reasons are in the physical homeland, in the longed-for land, in my grandmother’s patio, or in the hallway-solar of my mother, in the streets of our childhood memories. Will making this dialogue possible also be part of the (post) pandemic challenges? Perhaps, like love, everything begins with a good Cuban meal, a good menu between brothers, sharing an elaborate dish, like those of the Chef Miguel, accompanied by a Cuban rum, a cachaça Brazilian (aguardiente), a whiskeya tequila or a vodka.
Maikel, brother, you see how my life is here, I don’t stop, I personally design and review each dish, you can’t lose the imprint and quality. When you return to Brasilia, be sure to visit me and have lunch at the Havana WineryI will receive you with pleasure.
We say goodbye, a hug, two Cuban brothers, Camagüeyans, foreigners in other lands, who try to make foreigners closer to them with their lives and work, who build bridges and who, in Miguel’s case, add flavor to the life of dozens of Brazilian men and women. Blessed are those who strive, blessed are those who do not allow themselves to be fed by pain, adversity, hatred, and from any corner of Cuba and the world, continue to build their dreams, their homeland, their lives. I will definitely return to Brasilia, I am still fascinated with this beautiful Brazilian city, and I already know that there will also be an oasis of Cuban cuisine where I can stop.
