La Zaragoza, a gastronomic temple of Havana turned into ruin and public bathroom

Havana/One of the oldest and most famous restaurants in Havana, the Zaragoza, has become a crop of rubble, rotten wood and worn columns that seem to sustain the roof of pure miracle. Here they passed, among many famous characters, the poet Federico García Lorca, the American writer Ernest Hemingway or the Marcian Rocky boxer to taste delicious seafood plates. Today the place is only inhabited by rats, cockroaches and mosquitoes.

A look at the building and its interior evokes desolation for the abandonment of the authorities the images taken by this newspaper say everything. The ceiling, blackened and cracked, shows corroded beams. The walls, where before hung mirrors and paintings, are now ricked and covered with mold. On the floor, instead of polished wood tables and linen tablecloths, remains of dad -tanks, garbage and pieces of masonry are piled today.

A neighbor of the area, whose grandfather, Pepín Rodríguez, worked many years ago in the Zaragoza, tells 14ymedio: “The place is a collapse. Until recently, access was closed. Now someone opened it, and has also become a public bath. People enter to urinate on the ruins.” His grandfather began working there in 1947, washing dishes and with just 16 years, but always kept a pleasant memory of “his cleaning and his delicious food.”

Founded in 1830, on the old street of Monserrate, number 75 (today Belgium Street, 357) the restaurant is located near the famous Bar El Floridita. It was one of the most reputed places to eat fresh fish and shellfish in Havana. Their owners presumed to receive the fishing of the day directly from the port, which won a faithful clientele of foreign habaneros and visitors.

The main hall, today turned into a field of crooked beams, was once a wide space of high roofs, elegant columns and brightly -colored walls. The wooden windows, whose moldings are broken and without crystals, were one of the halls of identity of the restaurant and let the boardwalk pass. At its entrance a sign with the name of the place and a crab stood, from which there is no longer one tooth.

In her golden age, Zaragoza was synonymous with good service and quality. The waiters, with impeccable white jackets, slid between the tables carrying enchilad shrimp trays, fried pargo and the famous paella of the house, which was spoken throughout the city. It was also a meeting place for politicians, journalists and artists. Those who lived those years remember that on Sundays we had to wait to get a table, and that some of the best rum drinks in the city were used in the small bar in the background.

The neighbor recounts with a mixture of longing and pain that her grandfather wanted to invite her to eat there in the 90s, but the site was already inaccessible to them for the high prices. Only foreigners could afford that luxury in those years of crisis. “Sometimes they took out some tables and only the Yumas were seen eating.”

The contrast to the present is brutal, but this is not an isolated case. Like many other jewels of Havana architecture, Zaragoza was a victim of institutional carelessness and an economic crisis that has left hundreds of historical ruins. The state company Habaguanex SA, who previously managed it, kept it abandoned. And the city’s historian’s office did not do anything to rescue him. For decades it remained closed, waiting for a restoration that never arrived. Meanwhile, the saltpeter of the Havana air and the lack of maintenance did their relentless work.

Ancient photos show a bright and elegant place, which seemed to resist the passage of time. The current images, on the other hand, reveal a skeleton of what it was. Zaragoza is today a symbol of neglect and a warning: every day that passes, Havana loses another part of itself.