For years, New York gourmands seeking the kind of Italian cuisine that Mamma used to make have flocked uptown to Rao’s in Harlem. But why should Italians own the market on comfort food-and particularly when Cuban cuisine has been for so long about making you feel so good? That’s the question that D. Rodriguez Cuba answers with its recent opening at the Hotel Astor in Miami Beach. James Beard-award winning chef Douglas Rodriguez, the father of Nuevo Latino cuisine, which swept through the region with the force of a cat-5 hurricane, has returned to his Cuban roots and the result evokes old Havana with an almost Proustian clarity.
First, the setting- What was once the Metro Kitchen & Bar, one of South Beach’s more popular power lunch spots, and more recently, the regrettable babe magnet Maison d’Azur, has been reborn as a kind of homage to Thirties-style Havana glamour, which befits its locale, the 1936 structure, the Hotel Astor. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Astor retains its Art Deco charms-and crossing its lobby and stepping down into the swank dining room is akin to entering another world-one marked by stately cruise ships crossing from Miami to Havana for a week of tropical elegance in private homes with fountains and lush gardens.
And yet there’s nothing remotely fussy or fusty about D. Rodriguez Cuba, a fact that becomes immediately apparent once seated. Service is marked by a kind of casual professionalism, once the hallmark of certain private clubs along the Eastern seaboard-and perhaps in old Havana as well. You feel immediately in good hands-as if the sommelier and server were descendants of the same family that had cared for your grandparents when they’d honeymooned in Havana-when daiquiris were de rigueur.
D. Rodriguez Cuba revives classic cocktail culture with pitchers of hand-stirred daiquiris and freshly-muddled mojitos, or the legendary Cuba libre-drinks that remind you how much Cuban cuisine is associated with celebration.
For, the truth is, my grandparents did honeymoon in Cuba in 1930-and the restaurant’s black-and-white framed photos of Hollywood stars and celebrities capture the romanticism of Old Havana.
In fact, it’s entirely possible that my grandparents feasted on something similar to the crunchy Cuban salad, a blissfully piquant mélange of chayote, radish, pumpkin, cucumber, crunchy bonito, cilantro, and mint red pepper vinaigrette, topped with Alaskan king crab. The flavors of this punchy salad herald spring’s bounty-and prepare the palate for the more unctuous pionono, a plantain roulade filled with mushroom, picadillo, and spinach served with black bean sauce and chayote slaw. This is the kind of vegetarian entrée that an omnivore devours without a second thought-except to consider ordering another.
As Jonathan Swift wrote, “Bread is the staff of life”-and the Cuban casabe pizza, a flatbread made with yuca flour and dotted with garbanzo bean puree with artichokes, black olives, roasted red peppers, and arugula is the sort of lip-smacking challenge to traditional pizza that might cause Neapolitans to take notice.
As for sides, consider spinach with garlic, and asparagus, as well as fufu, a sweet plantain mash, mixed with onion, garlic (and bacon, if you’re not pork averse) that recalls the best of Thanksgiving dinner sides and the feeling that maybe, after all, you can go home again.
One of Rodriguez’s signature desserts is his box of smoking cigars: an eye-poppingly indulgent combination of chocolate and dulce de leche (as well as a healthy dose of culinary imagination) that unfailingly brings a collective smile to the table. As for the bola de nieve, a Don Q coconut rum cake with freshly shredded coconut and pineapple sorbet, this tropical confection is the definitive snowball for snowbirds.
By now, you’ve relaxed into your white leather chair, your entire being suffused with a kind of tropical glow that comes from Miami (and Havana) nights-and if you’re seated outside in the garden, beneath the overhanging night jasmine, you are certainly entitled to enjoy a cigar-and perhaps a salsa, if you’re so inclined. Dedicate it your grandparents, wherever they honeymooned-and to the memory of Old Havana. D. Rodriguez Cuba takes you there: to the comforts of a place long associated with grace, elegance, and style.
LINK: D. Rodriguez Cuba
EDITOR’S NOTE: This restaurant has moved to a new location at 101 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, FL 33139
