Goodbye, Larios. Miami’s king and queen of Cuban restaurants have retired
The long reign of the Miami king and queen of Cuban cuisine has ended.
Quintin and Maria Teresa Larios, founders of Casa Larios Cuban restaurant, who made a name for themselves by partnering with Emilio and Gloria Estefan to later open Larios on the Beach, have retired and are out of the restaurant business.
La Fragua, the Cuban restaurant where they made a comeback in 2016 located at 7931 NW Second St., has been sold to new owners, said Maritsa Reina, Maria Teresa’s first cousin who owned the restaurant and employed the couple. Larios on the Beach, owned separately by the Estefans, remains in business.
“It was too much work for us at our ages,” Reina said.
Quintin, 91, and his wife of 60 years, Maria Teresa, 79, worked daily at La Fragua until the pandemic hit, Quintin still overseeing the kitchen, Maria Teresa running the front of the house. There, they preserved the best iteration of Cuban food in Miami, from perfect vaca frita to Quintin’s baked chicken, which first made Gloria Estefan a fan in the 1980s.
But the couple contracted COVID-19 and stepped away from the restaurant early last year, Reina said. She and her family continued to run it while they recovered.
“They’re both really strong. They didn’t even have to go to the hospital,” Reina said.
The couple opened Casa Larios in 1988, and it soon became the quintessential Miami restaurant, where everyone from Cuban royalty like Estefans and Andy Garcia would share tables with recently arrived Cubans.
At the height of The Miami Sound Machine’s fame, the Larioses went into business with the Estefans to consult on the menus for Larios on the Beach and Bongos Cuban Café. The couple continued to run their own restaurants, one near Flagler and another in South Miami. But a slumping economy and bad business dealings forced them to declare bankruptcy and close both locations.
But after almost two years of inactivity, Reina opened a new restaurant, La Fragua, and brought them back as employees — at the site of their very first Casa Larios — to give them purpose. They found that purpose, and their old diners found them.
The couple began and ended their workday with a meal together, “like two little love birds,” Reina said, at the same table in the middle of the dining room.
“This is oxygen to us,” Maria Teresa told the Herald after the restaurant first opened in 2016. “To me, it was traumatic to sit at home for a year and a half without working.”
Now they await the second of two coronavirus vaccines — and the end of the pandemic.
“Hopefully all this will pass,” Reina said, “and they can enjoy their retirement.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
CORRECTION: This headline of this story was changed to clarify the owners of La Fragua. The Larioses retired from the restaurant and the family member who owned it sold it.
