Our waiter presented us with the wine list, which met with my expectation of high prices. The list did appear carefully curated and offered some less commonly seen bottles, but sparkling wine choices were limited, so I settled on a bottle of Krone Rosé which I had brought along as a backup. Corkage was R45.
Little Havana has to be commended on their starter options which, unlike their main courses, were varied and interesting. We settled on an oven roasted camembert and pancetta and an intriguingly titled 'deconstructed prawn samoosa'. The camembert was delicious, although the streaky bacon which it was wrapped in, while salty, crisp, and smoky against the smooth cheese, was certainly not pancetta.
The deconstructed prawn samoosa was the best part of my meal. A generous portion, it consisted of a Mauritian-style prawn curry, which was sweet and hot, piled high on a plate and interleaved with sheets of samoosa wrapper pastry that were crunchy on the edges and soft where they were soaked with the sauce of the curry.
Feeling confident that we had found a restaurant of above average quality, we turned to the main courses, and examined the steak options which are essentially a mix and match of cut, sides, and sauce. All steaks are seasoned alike, with salt, pepper, mustard seeds and thyme, and come with the obligatory choices of chips ('shoestring fries'), rice or baked potato. Side options included those horribly uninspired stalwarts, creamed spinach and cinnamon butternut. Feeling good after our starters, we decided that the minimalist menu was indicative of superior, no-nonsense meat, and not simply a lack of imagination on the part of the chef.
I ordered a free-range, grass fed rib eye steak, medium rare, with a side order of onion rings, chips and 'Cuban rum barbecue sauce', which was the most interesting sounding sauce on offer. Service was brisk, with my steak arriving less than ten minutes after ordering, despite the full restaurant.
To be honest, I don't know who is still impressed by the presentation of a steak that sits looking lonely on the middle of a large white plate, with one of those cheap ramekins of sauce as its only company. Yes, the steak was good, but no - it was not able to carry the whole course all on its own. The sauce tasted like catering grade 'BBQ' sauce with a splash of alcohol, and the chips were underdone. The onion rings, which were fluffy, hot and moreish, struggled manfully to rescue the overall impression but didn't quite manage, and the toothpick flag stuck into the meat didn't help to raise the tone of the dish either.
Our second order was a rare rump steak where the quality of the meat was unfortunately not good enough to match the short cooking time and which remained tough and chewy.
The pudding menu continued in the traditional vein introduced by the main courses, and not feeling like another crème brûlée, I settled for a cappuccino and a ten year old Laphroaig, which never disappoints.
Overall, we left the restaurant feeling disappointed. They would do well to infuse some Cuban elements into the cuisine beyond the name of the place and the Che Guevara shirts on the support staff. Where were the citrus flavours, the capers, olives or black beans? Where was the rum? The steaks for which little Havana is known are overrated, and sorely deficient in interest. The promise of the white table cloths was not met, and the commercial nature of the meal denied the revolutionary potential of the name.
More 1990s than 1950s Havana.
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