Chic places for foreigners and Cubans in search of status multiply in Havana

Havana/Garbán, Sfornabontà, Malecón 663, ChaChaChá, Ecléctico, Fangio, Yarini, Antojo, VistaMar are some of the new luxurious and expensive places in Havana where a plate of food costs the equivalent of the monthly salary of a Cuban worker. The proliferation of these venues, one increasingly more expensive than the previous one, occurs while the country is going through the worst socioeconomic crisis in its history.

The Sfornabontà by Amalfi opened its doors just a month ago. The owners, Italians, emphasize that they are the first store selling products from this country in Cuba. Several white-painted wooden tables occupied almost entirely by older foreigners smoking thin cigarettes or cigars. Located in Miramar on 1st Street, between 44 and 42, in front of the Copacabana Hotel, the place offers pizza, pasta and ice cream, as well as sweets and drinks rarely seen before in Cuba.

“The first time I went I just ordered takeout, because I was full. I asked for a cornetto, Stuffed with Iberian ham and cheese, super delicious, and it wasn’t that expensive, 500 pesos. The second time I went, two weeks later, they had raised it to 750 pesos,” says Amalia Rodríguez, who comments that she almost always finds out about these places through Instagram, where she and her friends share their visits to chic places. “I liked the place, but both times I went they had problems with the transfer. Too much coincidence. I think they don’t accept it.” Although the law does not allow it, many of these businesses prefer dollars in cash.

Parked in front of the establishment you can see modern cars and the occasional electric motorcycle, since the prices are not for everyone, with pizzas or main dishes from 1,800 to 6,000 pesos.

Just one block later, on the same 1st street, is the one where the youtubers Javi and Zami have called Garbán “the most expensive restaurant in Cuba.” The cheapest are soft drinks at a price of 990 pesos, and a bottle of water or a portion of rice can cost 2,000 pesos, a portion of five croquettes is close to 4,000 pesos and the main dishes are between 4,000 and the 9,200 pesos.

El Garbán is located just above Gelato, an ice cream parlor created more than 10 years ago. Both belong to the same owners, the Cuban Yanetsi Azahares and her Italian husband.

A particularity of these restaurants are the cocktails and signature cuisine, along with the originality in the theme of their decorations. Some may be modernist, others minimalist, classic and bohemian or, as in the case of Malecón 663, owned by Frenchwoman Sandra Expósito, more contemporary.

“The decoration is original. All different chairs at the same table, things from the letter written on the wall. The clerks dressed strangely, with colored shorts and bare feet,” says Analay Cuello who, along with her husband, owns a business. MSME motorcycle sales. “Despite it being a strange place, I had a good time.”

“The food is strange too. The pork masses had chocolate sauce. I told him to put the sauce on the side just in case. We actually didn’t like it. All the dishes had something distinctive about them. The names of the rooms were Enjoying in Havana, Tula’s roomeach one with a different decoration.”

Analay and her husband rented a room, because in addition to being a bar-restaurant, Malecón 663 is also a boutique hotel. The night costs $110, with a bottle of cider and breakfast included.

“I didn’t see it as expensive. I have gone to places much more expensive than that, like Chucha’s Tapas Bar, for example. The bills, with my husband and my daughter, every time we go there to play, since it has an amusement park, are 18,000 pesos, and what we eat is a plate and a starter for each of us, with a drink, without dessert or anything, and thank goodness we don’t drink alcohol. A lemonade at Chucha’s costs you 1,200 pesos.”

“When I arrived, the only thing I saw were foreigners,” Analay continues. “The manager told us that, in fact, only foreigners or young bohemian Cubans went to listen to jazz and have a few drinks. People like us went little.”

Most of these sites have a good presence on social networks like Instagram, due to strategies that include collaborations with influencers fashion and artists.

Las Noches de Fangio is already a renowned club that takes place every week at the Fangio Habana restaurant, where artists such as Alaín Pérez, Ernán and Ruy López Nussa, Raúl Paz, Frank Delgado, the Abreu Brothers, among others, have attended. Most of these artists could fill a theater, but playing in these places brings them more economic benefits, since 1,000 pesos is the minimum that is asked for. cover. Other places that have this duality of concert restaurant are Yarini, owned by Cuban actor Jorge Perugorría, or Ecléctico, to name a few.

Going to these spaces is a sign of status. Post on social networks that you are going to places where Havana showbiz and foreigners attend, who are not the ones who go to the all-inclusive, but who stay in luxury hotels and have lunch and dinner in places where they spend 100 dollars per meal.

Something obvious jumps out. Almost all of the owners of these sites are foreigners or Cubans directly linked to a foreigner.

“It’s something I’ve seen almost everywhere we go,” Analay continues. “The owners are foreigners. They have their trusted people, the managers, which is what they call them, and they take care of their business when they are not there, which is most of the time.” “They are all equal. Cubans can’t go anywhere anymore, because they are all expensive. They open new ones and they are more expensive,” he concludes.

There are more examples. Color Café, owned by Loypa Izaguirre, a Cuban married to a Frenchman; Plan H, Cuban owner married to a German; Tribe Caribe Boutique Hotel, owned by two foreigners, one of them the producer of Venezuelan origin Andrés Levin and the other, a mysterious Anglo-Saxon investor, although it is insistently pointed out the shadow of Raúl Castro’s daughterMariela.

Most of these sites were recently reviewed by the newspaper La Presse of Montreal in a series of three, surprisingly dithyrambic, articles under the title Havane chic. The author, Canadian photographer Martin Chamberland, describes a new facet of Havana, “more high-end, even more nourishing for the taste buds and more dazzling for the eyes.”

One of the “experts” he interviewed is Canadian photographer Heidi Hollinger, who assures that “this city has the assets to become one of the most outstanding places on the planet and a first-rate gastronomic capital.”

Beyond the stupor caused by the description of this parallel reality, numerous questions arise: Did they only see that Havana where foreigners and that very small sector of Cubans with resources gather? When you moved from one chic place to another, didn’t you see the other, invaded by garbage, with buildings in ruins and widespread poverty?

“Cuba is increasingly beyond the reach of the Cuban people,” summarizes a user in the comments to one of the videos of the youtubers Javi and Zami. Cubans are the last to learn that Havana has become “a gastronomic capital.”