Worth the longish taxi drive to the suburbs. Lilliam and her team serve huge portions of delicious Cuban and International food in an artfully-lit, jungly garden with water features, statues and huge trees towering overhead. It can be slightly unnerving sitting under the latter when flowers, seeds and assorted wildlife start splashing into your soup, but Lilliam’s regulars just keep their cool and treat them as garnishes.

Caribbean
Moderate
Paladar

El Aljibe is one of the busiest restaurants in Havana, catering to the business and diplomatic crowd as well as to many large tour groups. The reason for the steady stream of clients is the best Creole food in Cuba; rice, beans and chicken really do not get any better than this .The atmosphere is provided by palm leaf/bamboo themed designs, attractive during the day.

Cuban/Caribbean
Moderate
State restaurant

A really fine paladar. The effect as you wait for your table is of a quaint English drawing room some-how mixed up with an art deco-gone-baroque style. There is no menu which means that one of the two owners will lovingly or brusquely depending on their mood, recite the options for you. It also means that the final bill will generally not be cheap. Having said that, food is prepared with care and the overall experience is generally excellent. Highly recommended, make sure that you book.

Caribbean/International
Moderate-Expensive
Paladar

La Fontana has been one of the most upmarket paladares for some years and has a steady clientele. The outside terrace is currently under renovation which still leaves space at the ranchon out back and an inside air conditioned space. Grilled meat and seafood, including octopus, snails and fish, are the speciality.

Caribbean
Moderate
Paladar

One of a set of good quality Miramar paladares, El Diluvio is truly Italian and has one of the only traditional clay ovens which explain the quality pizzas. Real Italian flavour is also provided for a range of pastas. The service is excellent and the chef excellent.

Italian
Moderate
Paladar

La Finca is extremely up market, set in the suburbs of Siboney past the Convention Centre it is run by Cuba’s gastronomic guru Tomás Erasmo. The atmosphere is provided by an abundance of tropical greenery within whose confines you may enjoy lobster termidor or fresh fish beautifully prepared. Not cheap and often quiet.

Caribbean
Expensive
State restaurant

Opinions vary on La Giraldilla. It is next to the Macumba nightclub which is extremely popular on nights with good groups playing. The entire complex is very upmarket featuring acres of white marble. The restaurant itself is either overpriced serving bland food or one of the most elegant high class places in Havana. We tend to the former view.

A new development, this is a great Chinese option if you are around the marina or somewhere close. Located at the end of one of the jetties the food offers an excellent alternative to Chinatown, especially if you value peace and quiet over the hustle of Chinatown.

Chinese
Moderate
State restaurant

Don’t expect to be able to use a wireless internet connection here but do expect good quality simple sandwiches delivered quickly and efficiently in a clean and popular environment. Three different types of bread and a variety of ingredients including turkey and cream cheese may not sound like much but don’t underestimate the value it provides.

Creole
Moderate
State restaurant

Italian
Moderate
State restaurant

If you are out at the Marina Hemingway, Havana’s premier marina, then Pizza Nova provides a good option. Thin crust pizza served on a charming outdoor patio overlooking one of the canals makes for a pleasent experience.

Opposite La Finca, the attraction of Rancho Palco is really as a venue for large scale events (US agricultural delegations seem to like it). The eating area is very large within both an outside and inside airconditioned area with the food (especially fish) good but unspectcaular.

Creole
moderate
State restaurant

When it was opened by Erasmo, the Tocororo was one of the first up-market restaurants in Havana. It remains an excellent option if you have the time for an elaborate lunch within a tropical garden replete with piano player by day and jazz band by night. Steak and lobster are the real house specialities and are done well. The Tocororo is also the location for Havana’s only Japanese restaurant; located to the left as you enter the main restaurant, which serves good sushi, sashimi and tempura and a new Tapas bar which has live music until 2am.

Japanese/Caribbean
Expensive
State restaurant

Opened in 2006 Yasmín generated a lot of enthusiasm as a new restaurant proving Middle Eastern cuisine. Unfortunately while the food, prepared from imported ingredients and prepared by a Syrian chef is excellent the place lacks a certain charm, especially for dinner, and is somewhat isolated with not much else close by.

A stone’s throw from Hotel Meliá Cohíba, do not be put of by the ugly exterior, inside lurks a cosy paladar with soft lighting and a collection of grandfather clocks. The family can seem a little weird and wonderful at times but manage to produce excellent food in a nice atmosphere. One of the best steaks in Havana.

Italian/Caribbean
Moderate
Paladar

Habana Café: American snacks
La Piazza: Italian
Expensive
State restaurant

While this impressive hotel is not to everyone’s taste if you want reliably consistent quality food with attentive service than you would do well to check out one of the hotel’s 5 restaurants. The two places which we really like are La Piazza (1st floor) which has a standard Italian menu (great pizza) with lots of sports memorabilia on the walls and Habana Café (located next door), a wannabe hard rock-style which serves Havana’s best hamburgers and is a great place to get a bite pre cabaret.

La Casa is a premium paladar worth the track out to Nuevo Vedado. Faux waterfalls provide a pleasant background and the well oiled kitchen produces excellent grub. A dinner generally does not come out too cheap but the experience is generally worth it. It is hard not to spot the esteemed owner enthroned in his ever present seat keeping an eye on all that goes on.

Caribbean
Moderate
Paladar

International
Expensive
State restaurant

This restaurant offers unmatched views and is worth a visit in itself just to take in the bird’s eye view of Havana. This is an elaborate fine dining experience with attentive service and good quality international food. Sometimes this does seem like too much of a well-kept secret and you should try to arrive neither too early nor too late to ensure that you have company in a large dining room.

The Hotel Nacional is a must see fabulous place. In the heart of the city overlooking the Malecón you will drive past it repeatedly. There are a number of restuarants within the grounds of which La Barraca is probably the best. Set in the lovely gardens this is a traditional ranchón (ranch) and serves drinks in ceramic mugs and a succulent all-you-can-eat chicken menu. The other feauture restaurant is the Comedor de Aguiar which is very grand, a little intimidating, expensive with beautiful chandeliers and immaculate waiters.

La Barraca: Cuban/BBQ
Comedor de Aguiar: International
Expensive
State restaurant

If you want an opportunity to chat with an interesting paladar owner then look no further than this friendly and welcoming paladar overlooking leafy Calle 25, near the university. The décor is provided by an impressive weapons collection which is the key to a long and interesting family history. Traditional Cuban fare is the order of the day—frijoles, tostones and big pork chops.

Cuban
Cheap-moderate
Paladar

This painted, peach-coloured 1920s mansion has two indoor colonial-style dining rooms and an outdoor grill restaurant. , Both offer healthy-sized traditional Creole dishes which are reasonable value without being of exceptional quality. The inside dining room may leave you somewhat cold, it misses that x factor which is a shame since the décor including stained-glass ceiling lamps and contemporary paintings is impressive.

This friendly paladar hides out in a newly painted but crumbling Vedado building. Make your way up to the first floor, traipse across the living room, down a long gloomy corridor to the kitchen and up to the roof terrace on a pretty steep spiral staircase. When you eventually get there, it’s all worth it for the kitschly lit, quirkily decorated rooftop dining area. Try the huge breaded pork schnitzel ($5). Traditional Creole dishes abound in hearty, tasty portions.

Creole
Moderate
Paladar

If you want to eat rabbit this is the place to go. A good quality state run restaurant set in a 1960s redbrick exterior which belies a 17th-century Tudor mansion replica. The restaurant opened in 1966 and its style was an idea of Fidel‘s powerful personal secretary Celia Sánchez. The mushroomy Conejo Financiera ($8) is recommended.

Creole
Moderate
State restaurant

This is a good paladar near the Hotel Habana Libre with a loyal clientele. Recently refurbished it still is a little claustrophobic but with attentive staff and good food. Speciality of the house: grilled pork. Tasty deserts: chocolate mousse and fresh fruit ice creams and sorbets.

Creole
Moderate
Paladar

An extremely popular place with Cubans and foreigners La Roca offers ok food for very good prices in an art décor style setting with multi-coloured glass windows. At 11pm a Cuban comedy set starts up for which there is often a long line of Habaneros keen to see the latest in Cuban humour. You are welcome to stay and enjoy the show although this will require a superb level of Spanish to make sense of it. Dress for the cold, air conditioning is intense.

Cuban
Cheap-moderate
State restaurant

Now fully renovated both the bar and restaurant offer un-matched views across Havana. The food is not bad either, at CUC 15 for a tasty steak this is a good venue if you want to eat in style.

International
Expensive
State restaurant

This small cosy paladar a local feel and is cute but horrendously overpriced.

Creole
Moderate
State restaurant

Monseigneur is an ice-cold, dimly lit world of fake marble, artificial flowers, kitsch statues, and grand piano. It falls into the typical Cuban state restaurant category with average food at reasonable prices and uninspiring service.

This beautiful run-down corner house with the large porch filled with run-down furniture is a ‘this could be such a nice place’ paladar. It s suffers from a lack of atmosphere or buzz and subsequently paying 12 dollars for roasted pork going to leave you feeling underwhelmed.

Creole
Moderate
Paladar

If you like interior design then a table for dinner at this exquisite mansion built in the 1920’s by the wealthy Catalina Lasa is a must. The food is pretty standard fare but the house is to die for. You may eat at the marble table literally built into the room, admire the marble floor, central fountain, mirror wall and intricately designed iron-grill windows.

Old-world opulence meets Hollywood glamour in this eclectic-style house. Guests are led down the red carpet to the two ornate dining rooms, one of which opens on to the sea. The ambience is stiff and formal with waiting staff to match; make sure you do not dine alone. Food is good but not as good as it should be.

Cuban/International
Moderate
State restaurant

Situated in a lovely corner mansion by the John Lennon park, one of Vedado’s quieter area. Quite popular. You definitely want to go up to the top floor spacious roof terrace surrounded by plants with the beautiful view of the greeny calm Vedado. Waiters are eager to please and the smoked chicken served with lemon sauce speciality is worth trying.

Cuban
Expensive
State restaurant

La Guarida has become a Havana institution especially for people visiting Havana; everyone’s been here from Calvin Klein to the Queen of Spain. The setting is marvellous: one climbs cracked and battered marble stairs past a once-grand ballroom full of drying washing to an intimate and enchanting restaurant, which is usually humming with activity. The atmosphere is so wonderfully charming that it is easy to overlook the food which, while consistently good, could be better given that this is such a Mecca. In particular the menu is very slow to change (it was revamped for the first time in many years during 2006).

International
Expensive
Paladar

Italian
Moderate
Economic association

A chic source of first class Italian food, convenient for supper after the opera or ballet, or for those in need of good solid sustenance and ice-cold beer after a long morning’s viewing of the Museo de Bellas Artes. The restaurant’s interior was designed by Roberto Gottardi of National Art School fame and it’s a cut above most modern Havana eateries, a relief to both eye and taste buds if you’re all-frijoled-out. Further decorative delight is supplied by the pulchritudinous punters propping upthe bar.

This Spanish-Moorish-style hotel has one of Havana’s most spectacular roof-top restaurants. If you want to enjoy breathtaking views over the city, show up early for dinner before the sun sets. Prices are on the high side, the atmosphere can be a bit dry and formal, and the quality isn’t always the best, but the views make it an unforgettable experience all the same.

International
Expensive
State restaurant

Whilst Havana’s Chinatown doesn’t enjoy a fraction of the choices of ingredients that Oriental restaurants in many other capitals enjoy, the chefs in the Barrio Chino’s small establishments work wonders with vegetables, rice, duck, pork, chicken, fruit and nuts. Tien Tan’s kitchen behind the ground floor restaurant is a fabulous sight—serried rows of young Cuban-Chinese men wield their woks like weapons in a sizzlingly hot kitchen, stir-frying at supersonic speed. The results are delicious al dente variations on traditional themes, with lots of fresh ginger and soy, best accompanied with cold Xing Dao.

Chinese
Moderate
Chinese association

Poor décor with cheap red table cloths being the highlight. Foodwise, the specialty is Pollo Lanzarote with honey-basil sauce. Not so cheap given how basic it is. We would strongly disuade people from visiting this Paladar at present due to reports of aggressive overcharging.

Cuban
Moderate
Paladar

Wooden tables with rustic leather chairs are laid out in a small corridor in a train like fashion. Written-all-over walls in bodeguita-style with Che Guevara pictures is a nice try but still in Centro Habana kitch range.

Cuban
Moderate
Paladar

On a backstreet one block from Zanja, this Chinese cultural association is named after a town in Guangdong province in southern China. The cool, spacious restaurant has great service, and is always full of Cubans. Expect good-quality dishes—all the Cuban favourites, as well as a few Chinese classics.

This is a classic paladar which offers authentic charm in a Cuban kitsch Centro Habana way. Main dishes are ridiculously overpriced (US$ 8-12) but the owner is lovely, making it worth the visit simply to see the inside of a normal house.

Cuban/Chinese
Moderate
Chinese association

Cuban
Moderate
Paladar

The Café del Oriente is a bit self-consciously grand, but the service is excellent and the majority of dishes very well cooked. The café menu downstairs differs from that of the upstairs restaurant, but if you’d like to see both menus the staff are flexible from serving from either one of them on both floors. In general there’s perhaps a tad too much emphasis on fruity additions to savoury dishes, but the Café’s Filet Mignon melts in the mouth and the Caesar Salad’s the best we’ve tasted on either side of the Atlantic.

Spanish
Expensive
Joint venture with Spanish group

One of our favourite choices for dinner in Old Havana, La Paella has a relaxed, intimate and charming ambience fully in keeping with the lovely boutique hotel (Hostal Valencia). The trademark paella dish is not perfect but pretty damn good and the wine selection not bad either.

Spanish
Moderate
State restaurant

Santo Angel is a high quality restaurant on the North West corner of the beautiful Plaza Vieja. The best tables are on the terrace although there is also plenty of room inside. It is expensive but worth it the dishes are imaginative and original (try for example the almond chicken in a sherry sauce).

International/Caribbean Expensive
State restaurant

Al Medina opened a few years ago as a Middle Eastern restaurant housed inside a lovely 17th-century building which was formerly a boys school. The menu features a large collection of meze dishes, grilled chicken and other staple Lebanese dishes including falafel and humus. Good for a light lunch or dinner if you fancy a change. The courtyard is very pleasant to eat in.

Eastern (Lebanese)
Moderate
State restaurant (Habaguanex)

Despite the international renown of La Bodeguita del Medio the actual food is generally a bit of a letdown. The place is worth stopping by for a mohito in the attached bar (although bear in mind you will be cheek to jowl with camera touting tourists). The restaurant does retain a certain ambience even though the best tables are reserved for Sammy Davis Junior amongst others.

Creole/Caribbean
Moderate
State restaurant (Habaguanex)

Located on the corner of Plaza Vieja this restaurant is dedicated to the revered musician Benny Moré. The band, memorabilia and general decor create a lively and popular atmosphere which makes it a good option if you like his music. The food is pretty average with the house speciality of lobster and shrimps typically overpriced and upsold.

Cuban/Creole
Moderate
State restaurant (Habaguanex)
* Dedicated to Benny More

There are not many signs of a restuarant hidden behind the busy bar which is open 24 hours. This was apparently one of Fidel’s favourite hangouts after the Revolution. Now as an average Spanish-Cuban restuarant serving the normal criolla fare there is nothing to really recommend it but equally not so terrible either.

El Patio was formerly an 18th-century colonial palace and is located on one of Havana’s most picturesque squares (Plaza de Catedral). There is no better place for people watching and is the perfect place for a drink any time of day or night. A good band plays most of the day. Unfortunately the food is somewhat overpriced and unspectacular. If you don’t care about the money spend 20 bucks on a pepper steak and sit back and enjoy.

Italian
Moderate
State restaurant

The Floridita is something of a cliché but a good one. Service is excellent and the ambience classy. The bar features a cordoned-off seat of former regular customer Ernest Hemingway. Food is good but expensive; thermidor lobster will set you back CUC 42.

International
Moderate
State restaurant (Habaguanex)

Definitely in the slightly dodgy category even if this simply reflects enthusiasm of the touts to get you inside. Certainly the claim to be Vietnamese is tenuous at best. It is, however, cheap and eatable offering the best value in Old Havana.

Cuban
Cheap
State restaurant (Habaguanex)

This restaurant is located in the lobby of the beautifully restored Hotel Raquel (the stained-glass ceiling is a real highlight of Old Havana). Included in the partly Jewish menu are Hungarian goulash and Israeli salad. Kebabs also feature heavily, with Shashlik del Edén, a combination of plainly cooked fish, chicken among the specials.

Jewish
Moderate
State restaurant (Habaguanex)

La Dominica enjoys a lovely setting next to the restored Colegio Universitario de San Gerónimo in between Plaza Vieja and Plaza de Armas. Patio tables are the order of the day outside of the heat of summer when the formal interior offers a chilled alternative. The food and service are both good with pizza and pasta heavily featured. Not quite as tasty as Prado y Neptuno and don’t ever expect the credit card machine to work but almost as good as it gets in Old Havana.

Italian
Moderate
State restaurant

A fantastic place to go if you enjoy your dinner with live flamenco. It does become quite loud so probably not so good if you want to chat. Service is good, the sangria excellent and the tapas pretty spot on (spicy potatoes, chorizo and shrimps in garlic being the highlights), the only real drawback are the main dishes which are a bit of a letdown—stick to the tapas.

La Mina is a large rambling complex which includes a sweet shop, bar, café, ice-cream parlour and restaurant. Located right on Plaza de Armas the view of the square is lovely. Unfortunately the food (pork, chicken, fish) and service is unspecial falling into regular tourist class which simply picks up passing trade rather than really attracting people.

Creole
Moderate
State restaurant (Habaguanex)

This bar is increasingly popular with tourists and Cubans alike, a fact which makes it something of a rarity in Old Havana. There is a microbrwery located inside which provides its own unique beer which is excellent. The bar has been restored beuatifully with long wooden tables inside and great people watching patio tables outside. The food is pretty basic, keep to the grilled pork or chicken, but relatively cheap and after a few beers who really notices anyway. Non-alcoholic drinks served other than beer.

The only Chinese restaurant in old Havana is set on a very busy tourist throughfare through old Havana but never seems to attract the passing tourist trade. It is a shame since it is a peaceful place with reasonable food. Look out for the red Chinese lanterns hanging outside.

Chinese
Moderate
State restaurant (Habaguanex)