Taste of the Town

Passport to Cuba

Havana Corners the Market on Cuban Cuisine

    Fortunately for fans of ropa vieja, chicken adobo, black bean soup and mango mojitos, the restrictions on travel to Cuba don’t apply to Havana—on the island of Alameda. The sleek, airy restaurant, which opened in December 2007 on Park Street at the corner of Webb Avenue, former site of the Emerald Garden restaurant, will never be mistaken for the Hotel Nacional de Cuba. But then, owner Zachary Scott wasn’t going for 1930s Art Deco glamour when he designed the Alameda sibling to his successful Havana Restaurant in Walnut Creek.
    Rather, he opted for a streamlined look with concrete floors and a vibrant lime green and sky blue color scheme to create a more modern tropical vibe, underscored by a looping soundtrack of Caribbean music. There’s also a splash of Old Havana nostalgia from giant poster-size photos of street scenes and classic American cars.
    As for cuisine, the menu, now overseen by chef Cyrus Irudistan, treads between the traditional and the contemporary, as well. Scott—a former California Pizza Kitchen manager who grew up in a family that ran a fondue restaurant in Walnut Creek—didn’t have Cuba on his mind when he and then-partner Jeff Dudum took their first steps to open an eatery in Walnut Creek six years ago. “We signed our Walnut Creek lease before we knew what kind of restaurant we were going to put in,” Scott says. “We just knew it was a great location.”
    But a friend had introduced him to Cuban food, and before he knew it, Scott was cooking island favorites for friends and family at home. When he got serious about putting a menu together for the restaurant, Scott researched other California Cuban restaurants, scoured cookbooks and hunted down recipes online. His passport to the roots of Cuban cuisine turned out to be the mother of a friend of a business partner. She was born and raised in Havana and was willing to share her kitchen wisdom with Scott and his crew. “She trained all of our cooks in Cuban home cooking—how to make the black beans right, how to make some of the traditional dishes the correct way,” he says.
    But Scott wasn’t about to become rigidly ideological about authenticity, and Havana’s menu puts California spins on the tempting array of starters, soups, salads, sandwiches and main courses. “Some of her recipes were pretty rustic,” Scott says of his ad hoc mentor, “so we had to make them more restaurant friendly.” The results include bright and tangy ceviches (scallops with mint, melon and red chili, $12; shrimp with tomatoes, onions, cucumber, jalapenos and cilantro, $9; cured halibut with mango, black beans, onions, peppers and cilantro, $9); plantain-crusted halibut with tomatillo-avocado salsa ($13 lunch, $19 dinner); sauteed day boat scallops with citrus-ginger sauce ($11/$12); garlic-studded pork tenderloin ($17); and chimichurri skirt steak with sauteed red onions ($9). (Chimichurri is an originally Argentinean sauce or marinade, typically made with parsley, oregano, garlic, salt, pepper, onion, paprika, olive oil and lemon juice or vinegar.)
    Those have turned out to be the most popular dishes in both Walnut Creek and Alameda, says Scott. On a number of lunch visits, however, Alameda Magazine staffers have been unable to stray far from Havana’s ample and delectable version of the classic Cuban pressed sandwich (ham, roasted pork and Swiss cheese) or the ropa vieja (shredded beef with onions, peppers and Manchego cheese), both on toasted rolls and both $9, although the art director has been known to venture deeper into the menu for the equally satisfying eggplant and roasted bell pepper sandwich with Swiss cheese ($8) and the mango chicken salad ($7 half, $10 full).
    When Alameda readers voted Havana their favorite new restaurant this year, they might have been as swayed by the bar menu as by the food and the ambience. “We really focus on our mojitos,” says Scott, reiterating the obvious: Havana offers a boggling number of variations ($6–$9) on the classic rum, mint, sugar, lime juice and soda cocktail—peach, strawberry, watermelon, pineapple, mango and more, plus an alcohol-free “virgin” version ($4).
    All the mojitos are half-price at the bar during the Monday-through-Friday happy hour and are available by the pitcher, an appealing option with a table full of tapas, such as the garlic fries ($6) that Havana’s cooks make from boniato, a tropical sweet potato, and serve with guava-chipotle and chimichurri dipping sauces; the boniato mash ($3), which pairs superbly with black beans ($3); twice-fried plantains with pineapple salsa ($7); apple-glazed yucca fritters ($7); guava-glazed pork skewers ($8); crab cakes with pineapple aioli ($9); or grilled shrimp with cilantro-lime sauce ($9).
    “We’ve been even busier than we expected,” says Scott, who sees a growing patronage of regulars in the late evenings towards the end of the week and is encouraged by the vigorous business environment of his Park Street neighborhood. “This one little section of Alameda has a great downtown feel,” he says. It’s a feel no doubt enhanced by Havana’s infusion of tropical spirit.

The Details

HAVANA RESTAURANT. Cuban. 1518 Park St., (510) 521-0130. Serves lunch 11:30 a.m.–2 p.m. Mon.–Fri., dinner 5 p.m.–9:30 p.m. Mon.–Wed., 5 p.m.–10 p.m. Thu.–Sat., 5 p.m.–9 p.m. Sun., www.havanarestaurant.net. Credit cards accepted, full bar, wheelchair accessable, reservations (8 or more) $$-$$$.

—By Derk Richardson
—Photography by Lori Eanes