Havana's food story runs on two economies: state ration shops and the private paladares legalised in 1993. Eat cerdo asado at a peso stall, tostones at a rooftop paladar, and drink daiquiris where Hemingway ran a tab. Bring cash.
Havana's largest farmers' market, on Egido between Corrales and Apodaca. Stalls of malanga, yuca, boniato, plantains, papaya and strings of garlic, sold in Cuban pesos by the pound. Open daily roughly 07:00–17:00, quietest before 10:00.
A first-floor dining room above the Spanish Asturian society, opposite El Capitolio, run since 1994. Dark wood, football trophies, huge portions of paella, ropa vieja and grilled lobster. No reservations — queues form on the stairs by 12:30.
Havana's roaster-café on the corner of Plaza Vieja, roasting and grinding Cuban arabica from Sierra Maestra and Escambray in-house. Order a cortadito or the cold café con hielo, and buy vacuum bags of beans to carry home.
Havana's only microbrewery, in an 18th-century mansion on Plaza Vieja, pouring unfiltered clara, negra and cruda from copper tanks by the metre-long tube — a 3-litre dispenser shared at the table with fried plantain chips.
Swiss-Cuban bakery opened by Katia Bianchini in 2013, a doorway-sized shop near the Plaza de San Francisco. Sourdough loaves, guava-and-cheese pastelitos, carrot cake and lemon tart — the only proper European-style baking in Old Havana.
A cluttered 19th-century townhouse of santería altars, boxing photos and antique fans, where Obama ate in 2016. The kitchen does classic criollo: ropa vieja, lechón asado with congrí, and shrimp in coconut sauce.
The 1817 bar that claims the frozen daiquiri, invented here by barman Constantino Ribalaigua. The Papa Doble — double rum, grapefruit, no sugar — is Hemingway's version, poured beside his bronze statue at the end of the mahogany bar.
Up three flights of a crumbling tenement staircase used in the film Fresa y Chocolate, Havana's best-known paladar since 1996. Tuna in sugarcane, suckling pig, and a rooftop bar over the Centro Habana skyline.
The window kitchens along Obrapía and Aguacate sell Havana's real breakfast: pan con lechón, ham croquetas, empanadas and thick guarapo cane juice, all in Cuban pesos, all eaten standing on the pavement.
Cuban street pizza is its own genus: a thick chewy base, salty local cheese that stretches like rubber, folded in half in a paper cone. Sold from house windows for a fraction of paladar prices, cooked to order in minutes.
The rum museum in the Fundación Havana Club, with a working scale model of a sugar mill and distillery, oak-ageing cellar and guided tours in English ending with a tasting of 7-año. Open daily 09:00–17:30.
A rooftop bar above O'Reilly with hammocks, bathtub seating and a short menu of octopus tacos, tuna tartare and ceviche. The gin-and-cucumber and passionfruit daiquiris are the sharpest cocktails in Old Havana.