La Teresina
The Italian fare—pizza, pastas, and seafood dishes—is good by local standards. The white-tile, European café–style setting overlooking the plaza is pleasant, and the staff is friendly.
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Eastern Cuba is the most laid-back part of Cuba, but it's also the least accessible to tourists. If you do get here, though, you will find small family-run restaurants and paladares, usually around the center of town, though they are harder to come by than in the more popular destinations. It’s good to plan ahead and check with your hotel concierge when reserving at paladares, although most people eat at their hotel restaurants.
The Italian fare—pizza, pastas, and seafood dishes—is good by local standards. The white-tile, European café–style setting overlooking the plaza is pleasant, and the staff is friendly.
This Canadian chain restaurant serves quality pasta dishes, salads, and pizza in a low-key, outdoor setting. Look for the yellow sign.
The well-prepared seafood dishes and extensive wine list befit Zun Zún's elegant Vista Alegre setting. You can dine outdoors on a wraparound porch adorned with potted ferns or inside amid the unique decor of the house's former owner, an Arab merchant.
Although this state-run spot serves much of the same fare as its many like-owned neighbors, its setting in a restored colonial mansion on Plaza de Dolores is terrific. Fans spin slowly overhead from a lofty wooden ceiling, and large windows open to the plaza's northwest corner.
At this restaurant in the Fuerte de la Punta you can dine on traditional food 24 hours a day. Tables are set within the old fort walls. Just outside are wonderful bay views. Live music and dance shows take place nightly.
In the former mansion of the rum-making Bacardí family, this restaurant is an old Santiago standard. Although the dishes lack a sense of adventure, you can't beat the ambience. The formal dining room, with its antique furnishings, is particularly striking; the informal back patio, whose offerings vary only slightly from those inside, is a great spot for a drink.
Conversation and music linger in the air at this authentic Cuban restaurant. Long white flowers known as campanitas blancas hang from the trellis of a broad interior courtyard. A marble staircase leads up to a narrow second floor and its long bar. Diners at tables on the balcony survey Plaza Dolores.