Floridita Restaurant, a classic

By: Cecilia García
Photos: Rolando Pujol

The history of  Floridita Restaurant goes back 180 years. According to the Cuban author Fernando Campoamor, La Piña de Plata, first eating-house turned afterwards into a cognac, vermouth and gin bar, essaying “compuestas” as the forefathers of modern cocktails, was its predecessor.

A classic due to its distinction,  Floridita owes its preference not only because it is an elegant and comfortable restaurant offering the best of international cuisine, including sea food and fish.  There is something else: it was preferred by Ernst Hemingway and is also one of the eight more famous bars in the world.

Whoever visits Havana is tempted to get acquainted with the “cradle of the daiquiri” one of Havana’s most emblematic hideaways.  There, in the corner seat, in the first three-legged stool, Ernest Hemingway awaits. A Literature Nobel Prize, author of best sellers as “For whom the bells toll” and others, he preferred his daiquiri (or Papa’s drink as it is also known), originally made up of 0, 25 ounces white sugar, 0,25 ounces lemon, 1,5 ounces white rum (white carte Bacardí), 4 ounces crushed ice and 5 maraschino drops, all of them well beaten in a blender.

In Floridita, many relevant cultural, political and art as well as social life personalities, have enjoyed excellent cocktails and exquisite dishes based on fish and seafood, prepared by culinary masters.

For more emotional experiences, twelve types of different daiquiris are always prepared base on the cream of the fruit you prefer, they maybe enjoyed in an ambiance mastered by an excellent group of professionals and accompanied by well known music groups, playing the unmistakable Cuban traditional rhythms.

As Campoamor would say, Floridita continues its beautiful Havana tradition, perpetuated in Hemingway’s glorious writings, the noble friend, still alive in our memory.  You owe  Floridita a visit, it is a classic     

Floridita Restaurant
557 Obispo Street corner of Monserrate
Old Havana
Phone: (537) 8671299 / 8671300 y 01
Email: floridita@floridita-cuba.com
Open from 12.00 m to 12.00 pm