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

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

Cuban/Caribbean
Moderate
State restaurant

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.

Caribbean/International
Moderate-Expensive
Paladar

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
Moderate
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.

International
Expensive
Paladar

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).

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.

International
Expensive
State restaurant

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.

Chinese
Moderate
Chinese association

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.

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.