Cafe Cuba and Morales Cafe: 'Patria y Vida y Daiquirita! is the new slogan on the block'
Cubanophile Philip Sweeney discovers a new cocktail in Bristol's little Havana
According to his biography on Muckrack, Philip Sweeney is is a writer, journalist and broadcaster on international culture, society, travel, and food. His work has appeared in publications including the Independent, for whom he was world music correspondent for fifteen years, The Guardian, The Observer, The Telegraph, Economist Intelligent Life, magazines including National Geographic, Songlines, Food and Travel, and Wanderlust, and on BBC Radios 3 and 4, for whom he has written and presented documentaries on numerous subjects, from the Paris metro to the hidden concentration camps of France. His books include the Virgin Directory of World Music and the Rough Guide to Cuban Music, and he is currently working on books on Algerian France and on Cuba and its diaspora seen through food. He also produces food and music events, and designs and leads music tours of Cuba.
Given that repertoire, you can imagine my delight (and, to some extent, surprise) when he agreed to write about two Cuban cafes for The Bristol Sauce. The subsequent exploration is every ounce the adventure you’d expect it to be, and a truly brilliant and informative read.
This piece is everything I love about Bristol; you can live here for decades and still discover something completely novel on your doorstep. If this publication can aid those discoveries for you Saucers, I will have achieved my aims.
~ Yours saucily, Meg
It’s not every day that a routine Bristol restaurant inspection results in the discovery of a hitherto undocumented tropical cocktail. But on Cheltenham Road you expect the unexpected, and a couple of weeks ago, unexpectedly, it happened.
Cafe Cuba and Morales Cafe comprise, along with a little grocery shop, a mini empire founded by the families of Osvaldo Morales, an ex-coffee farmer from Guantánamo province, and his partner, David Otero, a former barman at the Hotel Guantánamo, in the city of that name, which as an old Cuba hand I happen to know.
Cafe Cuba opened on Stokes Croft shortly after Osvaldo arrived in Bristol, via Moscow, and hooked up with David, whose wife had started the Cheltenham Road little Havana ball rolling with a hair salon.
A glass-fronted shop next to the infamous Turbo Island, Cafe Cuba has a dozen sensibly placed tables in front of a small steel-lined open kitchen, where Oswaldo Morales methodically stirs, chops, sautés and DJs. He favours cubaton, bachata and dembow from Santo Domingo across the water (from Guantánamo, that is, not Stokes Croft) played at tolerable volume. Separated by a narrow gangway is the little bar, the realm of David, who assembles the drinks with a similar unhurried expertise, while also acting as head, and often only, waiter.
The food is far from the sole point of interest, but it’s well worth a visit. This Cuban home cooking is copious and good, served sizzling straight from the pan a couple of metres away to your table. A ropa vieja (£18.99), shredded beef stewed with garlic, onions, olives, tomatoes and numerous herbs, comes with rice and black beans and fried plantains or yuca, the delicious fibrous but waxy tuber served either boiled with a sharp garlic sauce or fried so as to be soft but dense inside and slightly crisp on the surface.
There are also those great Cuban treats tamales, balls of maize dough steamed with the same sauce rich in finely chopped garlic. Subtly marinated roast pork (£18.99), the Cubans’ favourite dish, is excellent. A rice and prawn dish copiously sauced with tomato and white wine (£18.99) is adequate and there are plenty of seafood and veg starters; even something called a ropa vieja vegan, but this is a pretty heavily carnivorous place.
The décor is a significant attribute. Chic it’s not, but neither is it the Old Havana pastiche job affected by the Cuba theme establishments that open and close regularly throughout the UK. Yellow walls, Cuban flags, paintings on goatskins, pictures of boxers. And handwritten notices, bearing curious slogans like Abajo (down with) Fidel! Patria y Vida! (homeland and life, title of a famous dissident rap song) and Diaz Canel Singao! The latter is a very rude epithet joyfully applied to Cuban president Miguel Diaz Canel, popularised by another exile rap number from Miami, and similarly banned on the island. Mein hosts, it doesn’t take long to figure out, are not fans of the Communist Party of Cuba, and a Che Guevara T-shirt would be a poor choice of attire for a soirée at Cafe Cuba.
The drinks are equal stars along with the recherché Latin expletives in the Cafe Cuba experience. The cocktail list (most at £8.50) is shortish, and as sweet as is normal in Cuba. A daiquiri comes perfectly shaken and not over-crammed with shaven ice as often happens in bad Cuban tourist bars.
A mojito is billed as ‘special’. In what way? The answer is in the extra band of russet at the top of the tumbler of ice, sugar, Bacardi, soda, chunks of lime and sprigs of mint. It’s a layer of Captain Morgan dark rum and the sugar is not just a spoon of sugar but a solution of sugar in water brewed separately, a small but critical detail.
Both Bacardi and Havana Club rums are served, but we can’t get into the labyrinthine political repercussions of that. Can David make a mulata, I ask, my standard test of a barman in Cuba, where many of the tourist bars have forgotten this old fashioned but delicious recipe, a sort of daiquiri variant with chocolate liquor. No, says David, but he’ll look it up, and sure enough there it is on the menu (and signposted on the wall) the following day.
Which brings us to the Morales Cafe, just up the road, where Osvaldo’s daughters Omara and Ana run a similar operation minus the dissident slogans.
During the day, breakfasts and copious sandwich type dishes are on offer. A sandwich Cubano (£12), stuffed with shredded pork, ham and cheddar was just fine. The dish is never going to win gastronomic prizes, despite the fact that it’s kept half a century of Cuban state cafes in lethargic business.
Moving into the wider Latin American repertoire – it’s no surprise that the Morales businesses, well stocked with Mexican, Colombian, Central American products, contain just a single item from Cuba; coffee. There’s a tasty Colombian arepa, cornbread roll, griddled and stuffed with freshly fried chicken and grated cheddar (£10) good coffee, either espresso using Colombian coffee, or Cuban, made with a Moka filter jug.
Several hot dishes include a peppery chorizo infierno (£15.99) nice chunks of Spanish sausage in chilli-laced oil, served with rice and black beans and a perfectly sliced avocado.
And so to drinks, and the discovery. The cafe does the same Captain Morgan-enhanced mojito, and several flavoured daiquiris. But no daiquiris available on my last visit. Sorry, we’re out of tequila, said Omara. But daiquiris don’t have tequila? Our’s do, riposted the proprietress, and recounted an extravaganza of a recipe including Bacardi, Cointreau, sugar syrup, lime juice, tequila and a pinch of salt. Outrageous, an unsuspected hybrid of a daiquiri and a margarita, hiding in plain sight a quarter of a mile from Broadmead! I’m exercising my right as discoverer to rename this concoction. Patria y Vida y Daiquirita! is the new slogan on the block. And down with any singao who says different.
All words and photos by Philip Sweeney
Cafe Cuba, 69 Stokes Croft, BS1 3QP
Morales Cafe, 192 Cheltenham Rd, BS6 5RB
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