Cuban Paladares | Restaurants in Cuba | GeoEx Travel Blog
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Inside Cuba: A GeoEx Journey – Paladar

By GeoEx Staff | March 25, 2013

It’s an inevitable request from every group that travels through Cuba. At some point the novelty of the Hemingway bars wears off and visitors to Havana want something a little more authentic: “I want to drink where the locals drink!”

Until recently this was a tough request to honor. There are plenty of bars in Havana, but most are filled with tourists happily handing over the equivalent of $3 for a beer or $5 for a daiquiri, a price few Cubans would dream of paying. To truly drink with locals meant buying a bottle of cheap rum and hanging out on the malecon, the seaside road, or venturing into dingy establishments where grumpy old men huddled around an old TV watching a local baseball game. Neither provided the type of welcoming ambience most visitors were hoping for.

Enter El Chanchullero (pictured above) and the paladar movement. In 1998, as part of a series of pro-tourism reforms, the Cuban government started allowing citizens to open their homes as semi-private restaurants. Over the past 14 years the movement has changed the landscape of the Cuban dining experience and in the last few years it is starting to do the same for bars, with El Chanchullero serving as a prime example. In this Old Havana home, locals and tourists mingle at a bar where a beer will cost you $1 and a rum about the same.

On the other side of town in the Vedado neighborhood, Bar Madrigal is offering something similar yet strikingly new to the Havana night-scene. Owner Rafael Rosales turned his home into a bar trendy enough that it caught the attention of the New York Times in early 2012. And although he was happy for the free publicity, Rafael admits, “I didn’t intend this bar to be for tourists. With all the attention I know I could raise my prices, but that would mean that few Cubans could afford to come and this would be just another bar for tourists.” Instead, Rafael keeps his prices low and his crowd equal parts local and foreigner. His bar, the only non-dance club that stays open until 4am on weekends, is setting a trend that others are sure to follow.

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Read more from this blog series:

Inside Cuba: A GeoEx Journey – Art
Inside Cuba: A GeoEx Journey – Market
Inside Cuba: A GeoEx Journey – Organoponico
Inside Cuba: A GeoEx Journey – Flamenco

Intrigued to find out more about Cuba? Check out our GeoEx journeys to Cuba or call us at 888-570-7108.

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