Flan cheesecake or Maduros Foster? A new Cuban-American restaurant opens in downtown
Five blocks from Miami’s Freedom Tower, where his father huddled as a 6-year-old Cuban immigrant, Alex Recio built a restaurant that is his family’s American dream.
Recio was just a boy when his father, Alejandro, retired as a Hollywood Police officer and took over perhaps the best-known Cuban bakery in Broward County, Miramar Bakery — named after Havana’s suburb (not Fort Lauderdale’s).
Recio took that well-established brand and made it his own. He opened farther north as something new, Colada Cuban Café, where they made “Cuban food with an American twist and American food with a Cuban twist.”
And now it has come to Miami. A new outpost of a 5-year-old Broward favorite, Colada Cuban Café has opened as a full restaurant in the bottom floor of downtown Miami’s Yve Hotel.
“There’s something very poetic about my dad coming to the Freedom Tower at 6 and me opening in its shadow,” he said. “We want to show what immigrants and an immigrant family can do when given the chance to flourish in this country.”
The new restaurant reflects specifically a Cuban-American experience. That means Cinnamon Tres Leches French toast, braised oxtail rabo encendido with a white truffle risotto, mojito shrimp served over five-cheese creamy polenta.
“We wanted the restaurant to be an expression of the Cuban-American experience,” Recio said.
At the original Fort Lauderdale Colada Café, that meant craft beer paired alongside a BLT frita Cuban hamburger or a ropa vieja bowl with an iced café con leche.
At the Miami restaurant (which has a full bar), Colada builds on that menu with meals served all day and an express ventanita for walk-up Cuban coffee and more. The restaurant includes a section of strict Cuban favorites for tourists on the go, but the heart of the menu is the American-Cuban, Cuban-American twists: Flan cheesecake or Maduros Foster, anyone?
A separate dining room dubbed El Comedor will host private events.
Colada’s walls are lined in the authentic black-and-white family photos from his and his wife’s family. Pre-Castro Havana phone books are time capsules. And in the center of the room there’s a faded antique mirror where Recio hopes guests can see their immigrant families in themselves.
“We want you to feel you’re in your grandmother’s dining room,” he said, “whether that was in Havana or Hialeah.”
Colada Cuban Café & Grill
Address: 146 Biscayne Blvd., downtown Miami
Hours: Sunday to Thursday, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday until 11 p.m.
More info: ColadaCubanCafe.com
This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 2:59 PM.
