City Life | 5 September 2009

After 50 years of communist gristle, no wonder old Fidel’s guts are playing up

There’s a degree of natural justice in the fact that Fidel Castro had to cede power to his brother Raúl last year because of serious gastro-intestinal problems. Put bluntly, after 50 years of Castro communism, Cuban cuisine is absolutely revolting. It’s rumoured that barely a thousand head of cattle remain on the island — down from several million pre-Fidel — and that gristly offcuts of beef and mutton are imported from Venezuela, Costa Rica and even the US. Restaurants come in two grades: cheap, cheerful and awful; or pricey, miserable and awful. Roadside fare is worse: plates of malodorous rice and the occasional limp vegetable washed down with impenetrable ‘meat sauce’. The Comedor de Aguiar, the grandest restaurant in the grandest hotel, the Nacional, is little better; and if the fish doesn’t kill you at El Floridita, the prices will.