HAVANA – Ramon Menendez went to his grave in the 1980s believing that his family grocery, shut down by Fidel Castro’s revolution, would one day rise again. In January it finally happened.
La Moneda Cubana, which sold groceries, snacks and liquor, is back in business in the heart of Old Havana. But now, under the management of grandson Miguel Angel Morales Menendez, it’s an elegant restaurant, one of dozens that have sprung up as the country struggles to adapt its communist system to modern economic realities.
“My grandfather would be proud,” Morales said. “I kept telling people it’s not a dream! It’s not a dream! One day it will be possible. One they have to let us.”
After years spent working in dreary state-run restaurants and hush-hush culinary speakeasies, restaurateurs and chefs are operating under a set of new, less exacting rules that allow their talents freer reign. There are brand new places such as La Moneda Cubana, and splashy reopenings such as La Guarida, made famous by the Oscar-nominated 1993 movie “Strawberry and Chocolate.”
The boom runs the gamut from La Pachanga, which serves guava shakes and towering $4 burgers, to Cafe Laurent, a converted penthouse where the mostly foreign clientele can easily
Read More from the Article Source: Full Article
