October 18, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Very good, very expensive Nuevo Latino cuisine
by LEN LEAR

The interior at Alma de Cuba is eye-catching. It’s typical Stephen Starr, as are the noise, the prices and the quality.

When we walked up to the front door of Alma de Cuba (“the Soul of Cuba”), 1623 Walnut St., at 6:35 on a recent Wednesday evening, we truly thought they must have been giving food away. There was a stadium-sized, beehive-thick crowd both out front and inside, consisting of yuppie-types intent on getting close to the bar. Regarding the noise level, let’s just say that a jet plane taking off would have seemed quiet by comparison.

We thought maybe the mob that descended on Alma de Cuba had been held hostage by terrorists for months, and this was their first opportunity to taste liquid refreshment since being liberated. As a result, they were willing to put up with the deafening noise level and inability to move or decipher any sound softer than the roar of a lion in return for a draft beer.

A hostess then explained to us that this was much larger than the typical “Happy Hour” crowd. (It was also larger than the typical small town in Pennsylvania ... And by the way, when is the restaurant industry going to start referring truthfully to this phenomenon as “Horny Hour” instead of “Happy Hour?” The men I see at these bars are a hot hornier than they are happy.)

The hostess explained that this was the first week for “Center City Sips.” Apparently, every participating restaurant has agreed to sell beer for $2, house wine for $3 and cocktails for $4 every Wednesday, 5 to 7 p.m., until Labor Day. We were told the mob would soon be leaving since “Happy Hour” was almost over, so we chose to be seated in the second floor dining room, which had a much more civilized ambience.

For those who do not keep up with chapter and verse of the restaurant scene, Alma de Cuba (Soul of Cuba), which opened in May, 2001, is a collaboration between the city’s mega-restaurateur, Stephen Starr, and chef Douglas Rodriguez, who is widely regarded as the “Father of Nuevo Latino cuisine” and who also owns restaurants in Miami, Chicago, Scottsdale and London.

Nuevo Latino is probably the hottest restaurant trend in the country these days. It is basically a modern interpretation of traditional Latin cooking, often characterized by bold flavors, exotic produce like passion fruit and boniato (a white sweet potato), Caribbean fish like grouper and yellowtail, and many varieties of ceviche, a form of citrus-marinated seafood salad that originated in Peru and eventually spread throughout Central and South America.

The citric acid in the lemons and limes causes the proteins in the seafood to become denatured, which “cooks” the fish without heat. Thus, it tastes more like a cooked dish and less like raw fish such as sushi. Before the term Nuevo Latino came into vogue in the mid-1990s, the cuisine was referred to as “New Caribbean,” “New Floridian” or even “New Floribbean.”

“Latin as a culture is now everywhere; it has gone mainstream,” said Rodriguez, 41, who was born in Miami of Cuban immigrant parents and who won the “Miami Chef of the Year” award at age 24 from The Chefs of America. “People are always looking for the new thing or the next exotic thing, but this food has stood the test of time. It is also a way of life. The food is colorful, playful, spicy and exotic.” (According to the latest government statistics, approximately 13 percent of the U.S. population is Hispanic — about 40 million — and that does not count the millions more undocumented workers.)

The interior of Alma de Cuba is definitely impressive. Exposed brick walls, antique moldings, green mosaic tile floors and photographic images of contemporary Havana cast onto whitewashed walls are a few of the eye-catching elements that come to mind. The 58-seat first-floor bar-lounge features suede sofas, ottomans and dark wood cocktail tables.

The main dining room on the second floor features custom-designed chairs and banquettes covered in off-white fabrics and chocolate leather. Ebony wood tables, set with red-oil lamps, are wrapped in artists’ canvas. A main stairwell with a wrought iron railing leads to the second floor dining room. As guests enter the stairwell, bright lights cast their silhouettes onto the back of a huge translucent screen.

I looked at 37 mini-reviews of Alma de Cuba on citysearch.com by customers, and almost all expressed the same refrain — to which I would sing an encore: The food at Alma de Cuba is original and inventive; the presentation is aesthetic; many of the dishes are spectacular, but the portions are not particularly large by today’s standards, and the prices are seriously high. You could easily spend $100 per person or much more without even breathing hard.

We loved the Ecuadorian shrimp ceviche with roasted tomatoes, chives, avocado and corn nuts and the fluke ceviche with poblano peppers, yuzu (a very sour Japanese citrus fruit about the size of a tangerine) and cucumber with a dark beer sorbet, but they were $13 and $15, respectively. My favorite dish of all was the empanada with spinach, manchego cheese and artichoke escabeche, which was a deal at $12, but the open-flame toasted sweet corn empanada, with a poached egg which didn’t have much taste, was overpriced at $13.

A Chilean sea bass entree was moist and sublime with a glorious “cubanelle sauce” and a baby cucumber and poblano pepper salad ($29), but duck breast marinated with pomegranates and served with crispy rice, duck confit (salting the duck with garlic and spices and then cooking it in its own fat or broth), raisins, scallions and pine nuts was tender and tasty but surprisingly fatty ($28).

Pastry chef Amy Attardi’s old-fashioned tapioca pudding, similar to what my mom made at least once a week in the 1950s in West Oak Lane, does not sound like a dessert you’d expect at a Stephen Starr restaurant, but the way they do it at Alma de Cuba, served in a fresh coconut with warn guava oatmeal bars, was absolutely wonderful ($8.50), much better than I remember it. And a chocolate cigar — almond cake wrapped in a chocolate mousse and served with dulce de leche ice cream — was quite unctuous but steeply priced at $9. A cappuccino ($4.50) was strong enough to start the battery in a Hummer.

There is a huge list of wines with high markups, cocktails, beers and after-dinner drinks, of course. Glasses of Franciscan Chardonnay and Estancia Syrah were both delightful, but they were $12 each.

The ambience at Alma de Cuba is couple-ish, but the lighting is too dim. (A cynic might say this makes it difficult to read the total on the bill.) A few of the respondents on citysearch.com complained about the service at Alma de Cuba, but our server, a beautiful young woman named Christine, was peerless. Very attentive, very pleasant and very knowledgeable. For more information, call 215-988-1799 or visit www.almadecubarestaurant.com.