Monday, May 16, 2011
By Peter Orsi, AP
HAVANA, Cuba -- Ramon Menendez went to his grave in the 1980s believing
that his family grocery, shut down by Fidel Castro's revolution, would
one day rise again. In January it finally happened.
La Moneda Cubana, which sold groceries, snacks and liquor, is back in
business in the heart of Old Havana. But now, under the management of
grandson Miguel Angel Morales Menendez, it is an elegant restaurant, one
of dozens that have sprung up as the country struggles to adapt its
communist system to modern economic realities.
"My grandfather would be proud," Morales said. "I kept telling people
it's not a dream! It's not a dream! One day it will be possible. One
they have to let us."
After years spent working in dreary state-run restaurants and hush-hush
culinary speakeasies, restaurateurs and chefs are operating under a set
of new, less exacting rules that allow their talents freer reign. There
are brand new places such as La Moneda Cubana, and splashy reopenings
such as La Guarida, made famous by the Oscar-nominated 1993 movie
"Strawberry and Chocolate."
The boom runs the gamut from La Pachanga, which serves guava shakes and
towering US$4 burgers, to Cafe Laurent, a converted penthouse where the
mostly foreign clientele can easily drop US$30 a head, more than Cuba's
average monthly wage.
If the restaurants are successful, they could generate badly needed tax
revenue and provide a model for how to shrink the bloated state-employed
sector by absorbing hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats into the
private sector.
"This was long overdue," said Jose Antonio Figueroa, 39, a partner in
Cafe Laurent. "This is a chance to achieve what we always wanted."
After six years working at El Templete, one of the more highly regarded
government restaurants, he, another manager and an assistant chef quit
to start their own place as soon as the rules were announced last fall.
At Cafe Laurent, they have the freedom to set their own prices,
experiment with the menu, handpick employees who care about service, and
pay them enough to keep them from pilfering food for their families.
The new eateries are a boon for well-off residents and tourists tired of
the bland fare at many government restaurants.
"It's a lot better food, better service," said Simon Castellani, a
21-year-old visiting student from Copenhagen who was dining on fresh
shrimp at Cafe Laurent.
Authorities first let private restaurants open in homes in 1993 during
the austerity that followed the collapse of Cuba's lifeline, the Soviet
Union. But just months later they slammed on the brakes. In 1995 they
rolled out strict rules: the family restaurants, called "paladars" (the
Spanish word for "palate") were limited to 12 seats and prohibited from
serving steak or seafood. Live music was banned. Employees had to be
family members or registered as residents of the home.
The restaurant scene peaked in 1996-1997, when the government decided
the economic crisis was easing. It sharply raised the restaurateurs'
taxes and stepped up enforcement.
"They began to phase this experiment out," said Ted Henken, a professor
of sociology and Latin American studies at Baruch College in New York.
"I think that was mostly due to Fidel's ideological aversion to this
kind of thing."
Only a handful of the most successful survived. Even La Guarida, whose
A-list of past guests ran from Jack Nicholson to Queen Sofia of Spain,
shut down in 2009. Its owner was quoted as saying the laws made it too
difficult to operate.
The new rules allow the independent restaurants to seat up to 20 people.
Gone is the ban on seafood and steak, as well as the rule on hiring only
family members.
"That was always absurd," said Morales. "No family is entirely made up
of gastronomes and chefs."
Since then 60 to 100 restaurants have been launched in Havana, including
new, reopened and clandestine ones that went legit. They are also
opening in lesser numbers in cities on the tourist route. In blistering
hot Santiago de Cuba, the island's second largest city, a number of
homes now have improvised ice cream and fruit shops.
In interviews with The Associated Press, the new restaurant owners said
getting a license is now quick and easy, and government inspectors are
professional and helpful.
While Fidel Castro admitted that he opened the economy in the 1990s only
grudgingly and out of desperation, his brother and successor, Raul
Castro, stresses that the island must change its ways.
Still, running a restaurant can be brutal even in a thriving economy. In
Cuba, there's an array of taxes that one restaurateur estimates will
take at least 60 percent of his earnings this year. Supplies of fresh
ingredients are unreliable and credit is often unobtainable. The
government is developing plans to extend loans, but for now, many
entrepreneurs have gotten startup capital from relatives overseas.
Foreigners and well-heeled Cubans are too few to support all the new
restaurants that have opened, and some restaurateurs already are scaling
back operations or giving up.
Raul Castro has said he has no intention of dismantling socialism or
letting individuals accumulate too much wealth, and there is no
guarantee that the rug will not be yanked out again.
"They've been through this before," said Rafael Romeu, president of the
Washington-based nonpartisan Association for the Study of the Cuban
Economy. "Cuba has a flexible boundary that moves back and forth in
terms of the public sector's tolerance for private sector activity."
So restaurant owners are tempering their expectations for now.
"We don't anticipate people lining up outside the house to eat," said
Niuri Ysabel Higueras Martinez, 36, one of a trio of seasoned
restaurateur siblings. They operate stylish L'Atelier, perched on the
top floor of a 1860s mansion in El Vedado district and serving
experimental Cuban-fusion fare, everything from ceviche, a marinated
fish dish, and clams au gratin to falafel and babaganoush.
"We're not trying to get rich or become millionaires," added her
brother, Herdys Higueras Martinez. "We just want to have a good time
with the customers and have something left over for ourselves without
making a big show of it."
That could change if there is further economic opening and if Washington
should lift its half-century-old ban on travel to the island. Some here
consider the latter an inevitability, and say the paladars can absorb
the flood.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/art/food/2011/05/16/302478/New-rules.htm
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