In 1994 the government cracked open the door for this private enterprise, granting licenses with stringent restrictions to some paladares. In the early years of Cuba’s Special Period-a euphemism for the economic devastation and near famine of 1989 to 1995, brought on by the collapse of the Soviet Union-Cubans opened hundreds of illegal restaurants out of their homes in a desperate bid for survival. “I think it helped me a lot to grow in the kitchen, because I had to invent more with what little there was.” Illogical-we are on an island-but that’s how it was,” Arceo says with a shrug. “We could only have 12 chairs, we could not sell beef or seafood, anything from the sea. The government’s increasing restrictions also crippled the young restaurant. He put whatever he could find in his backpack and cycled home to plan the evening meal. Arceo spent each morning biking miles to various markets searching for basic ingredients like pork, lamb, and spices. For three years after he and his partner opened La Esperanza in 1994, their Havana paladar-a privately owned in-home restaurant-was plagued by food shortages. He’s stressed he’s cooking dinner for 50, alone, like he does every night.īut these are undoubtedly good days for Arceo. Manolo Arceo is expertly deboning chicken after chicken, the rhythmic thwack of his knife against the cutting board punctuating the cries of cats begging for scraps outside the kitchen’s back door.
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