Raúl:  Mostly, we just hate it.

Jorge:  Not all of it. What we don’t really like is a lot of the pretentiousness of the new cuisine.

Glenn:  I think everyone agrees that those cuisines have their roots in traditional Cuban food.  What happened is that several chefs felt the need to reinvent Cuban cuisine to make it more hip and trendy.

Raúl:  And to allow them to charge a lot more for a plate of Cuban food!

Glenn:  I guess the idea was to elevate traditional Cuban food -- which tends to be simple and down to earth -- to the level of haute cuisine. 

Raúl:These are the dishes that reflect the heart and soul of Cuba.

Jorge: We're not completely close minded. We do eat at some of the hip places occasionally, and just as occasionally we are pleasantly surprised by a dish or two that adds a new twist to one of the classics.

Jorge: It's hard not to like a restaurant where the interior captures the beauty of a Havana street corner in the 1950s. The design creates a great atmosphere for eating, and on a hot August night with the front of the restaurant open to the night air, you can almost imagine yourself in pre-Castro Cuba.

Glenn: We made an appetizer out of one of the entrees, the plato Cuba libre, which on this night includes a sampling of churrasco steak, a small mound of tender lechón asado, and camarones enchilados.

Raúl: The plate also included moros y cristianos, tostones, a couple of maduros, and a big pile of what appeared to be watercress.

Glenn: Also good and beautifully presented was the Pollo al Ajillo, a plump chicken breast stuffed with chorizo and cheese. They pan roast it and serve it on a serving of mashed boniato with grilled chayote squash and breaded, deep-fried olives.

Raúl: The deep-fried olives are very tasty!

Jorge: Another good choice was the tamal tabueno, a dish that manages to marry all of the most popular Cuban starches -- rice, ajiaco, calabaza, malanga, and plantains -- in one dish. The Nuevo twist comes from the addition of brown crimini mushrooms and baby onions.

Jorge: Desserts for us included an inventive banana tres leches cake with a chocolate banana mousse. Personally, I could have done without the mousse -- the cake itself was very rich and moist with a subtle banana flavor.

Raúl: The addition that did work is the slices of caramelized banana.

We Show You How in Two Great Cuban cookbooks: