12 Best Restaurants in Western Cuba, Cuba

Close to a cluster of hotels, this popular steak house is in an attractive colonial-style villa, with a covered, arched terrace. Specialties include Chateaubriand, grilled beef, or strip loin. The restaurant also serves a variety of seafood plates, including grilled lobster with garlic and butter and mahimahi fillets. It's an excellent, well-priced option for those who have exhausted their culinary choices in one of the many nearby all-inclusive resorts or are just interested in more private dining. Decor is classical, tasteful, and almost elegant.

This lively café, with a large, covered terrace overlooking the plaza, is the perfect place to grab a table and a cool drink and enjoy the view of the Sauto Theater. Inside, the scene is vintage 19th century, with wood floors, Corinthian columns supporting the high ceiling, a long, polished-wood bar, and vintage photographs on the walls. Stained glass transoms top the arched windows, while a cool breeze wafts in from the bay, and there are ceiling fans to keep the air moving. Open daily from breakfast to late at night, the menu is inexpensive snack fare, including pizza, large beakers of beer to share and, of course, every coffee concoction. There's a modern art gallery next door, and a little farther along, an interesting book shop that sells artistic, handmade books using old photos, hand-written text, and drawings. The café is a good bathroom stop after visiting the nearby Provincial Museum.

Despite the bevy of new eateries along the main street, this is still the classiest place in town, set in the most charming of Viñales's oldest houses. The white clapboard house, circa 1889, has neat, blue trim and shutters, and guests enter along a garden path under an arbor of vines. Both the excellent traditional food and the charming service make this place memorable. Diners can choose a table on the front veranda, in the garden terrace, or in the interior dining rooms decorated with sepia vintage photos. The delicias de Don Tomás, a rice casserole with ham, pork, chicken, lobster, and sausage, is a favorite, as is the tasajo a lo guajiro (shredded beef in a criollo sauce). The signature cocktail here is the Trapiche, a refreshing blend of pineapple juice, rum, and honey with a sugarcane swizzle stick.

At first glance, this simple restaurant under a blue, columned arcade may seem too scruffy to think about dining in. However, the locals choose "The Piglet" over the other options in town for a reason: the good-value, basic creole cuisine, including such pork specialties as chicharrones de cerdo (pork crisp), masas (pork loin), and cochinillo asado (roast pig) are delicious. If you prefer to munch your pig alfresco, there are a few tables sporting red-checkered tablecloths out on the arcade terrace.

The most romantic Varadero restaurant sits atop a small hill, beside what appears to be an antique round stone tower. It's actually part of the aqueduct system the duPonts built to supply their estate. A metal sculpture of Don Quijote, mounted atop his spindly horse, points a lance in the direction of the tower. Cuban and international specialties are on offer inside the candlelit restaurant—count on paella and fabada marinera (seafood bean stew)—with innovative touches from the creative chefs. The menu also includes the usual filet mignon, lobster, fish, and shrimp. The restaurant makes an interesting night out for visitors tiring of their all-inclusive packages.

First-rate Cuban cooking and excellent mojitos are served in this Varadero replica of Havana's Bodeguita del Medio—the famous Hemingway haunt—graffiti included. The food is carefully prepared, the prices are more than reasonable, and the musical trio is one of the reasons diners linger late into the evening. Diners can add their own poems, names, and graffiti to the restaurant's walls.

This open-air restaurant—built within the prow of a boat—is the flagship of the Complejó Punta Perdíz, with beachfront, thatch-roof shelters and beach chairs and a dive shop. The restaurant has fine views over the water from its upper deck but, sadly, the buffet menu is uninspiring. The CUC$15 buffet price is only worth it if you plan on spending the day here, imbibing the included bar drinks, and enjoying the beach lounges under thatch-roof shelters facing the sea. The snorkeling is excellent; dives cost CUC$25 a tank. The only place to change clothes is in the inadequate, cramped restaurant bathroom, so bring a large towel along with you. There are outdoor, cold-water showers and basins to rinse off salt water and snorkeling and diving gear.

Lobster is the specialty at this breezy terrace restaurant near the Cayo Largo Marina. Along with criollo recipes featuring fresh fish, there's standard chicken-to-pizza fare. It's more than the beach shack it may seem at first sight, with a good wine list and unobtrusive live music from a local trio.