First impressions count for a lot. No sooner did we enter Café LaGuardia than we were struck with the quirky authenticity of the place. It looked like it had been uprooted from the pre-Castro Havana of 1952 and transplanted to the United States intact. The dining room with its palms and slowly spinning ceiling fans captured the mood wonderfully, but the lounge area up front really got it done. Arm chairs and sofas of dusty red accented by zebra print pillows, brass lamps with twenties-era fringed shades, figurines of monkeys and camels, leopard print cushions, palms.
The gracious host and owner, Carlos LaGuardia, seemed sincerely apologetic that he couldn’t seat us immediately. He beckoned us to the lounge area and brought us a cocktail menu. We were just beginning to warm to the ambiance when a table became available and we were ushered to our seats by a little gray haired woman in glasses with a thick Cuban accent who seemed as sincerely interested in our welfare as the owner. She should have, I guess, this was Mama Laguardia. Our waitress appeared almost immediately, but seeing that we already had our drinks, left us to peruse the menu, and returned promptly as soon as we needed her.
If the dishes on the menu were half as good as the superlatives assigned to them we were in for a treat. The menu at Café Laguardia’s ladles it on pretty thick. Cuban red snapper is deemed “an incredible experience” by the menu writers. Stuffed flounder is “absolutely fabulous”. Cuban style pulled pork is “spicy and outstanding”. Yet just when you think the menu writers have gone over the top you get this: Rice and squid jubilee with squid cooked in its own ink “gives this a rich deep color” and is “an acquired taste”. Talk about understatement.
I opted for the spicy pork ossobuco island style, a dish to which few superlatives were attached, so I figured I was skating close to the edge, but in the event the pork, which had been cooked for hours in a tomato broth, fell from the bone and was wonderfully imbued with garlic, carapelli olive oil and white wine. It was spicy, tender and delicious, but I noted little if any of the potatoes, carrots and peas promised by the menu.
My wife went for the Brazilian red snapper, a dish mildly praised as “delightful” by the menu writers but carrying with it the glowing endorsements of no lesser lights than Rachel Ray and Check Please. Prepared in a delicate Brazilian sauce containing cachaca, coconut milk, dende oil and basil, the red snapper lived up to its billing. It was cooked to perfection.
Our appetizers of cheese and shrimp empanadas and Cuban Firecrackers (empanada-like twists containing chicken, cheddar cheese, corn and black beans) were very, very good. But the flan we had for dessert was nothing special.
A quick glance around the room gave us all the information one needs to know about a good ethnic restaurant. Well more than half the patrons were Cubans, and I mean Cubans of all ages, families and couples, grandparents and children. The amazing thing is that Bucktown is not known for being a Cuban neighborhood, so where all these Cubans came from is a mystery, but they were there in droves, enjoying their native cuisine.
When we went to leave, Mama LaGuardia and Carlos made a point of shaking our hands and asking if everything was to our liking. It was.
Café Laguardia is every inch the genuine Cuban restaurant, as endorsed by its Cuban patrons, underlined by its authentic décor and defined by its quality cooking. Café Laguardia is outstanding. Those superlatives in the menu exaggerate only a little. It was, to some degree anyway, “absolutely fabulous.”
Café Laguardia
2111 W. Armitage Ave.
773-862-5996 / Reservations Accepted (except Friday and Saturday)
Hours: M-Sa 11am-11pm; Su 12pm-8pm
Features: Outdoor Dining, Live Music
Avg price of a meal for two including drinks and tax $70.00
website: www.cafelaguardia.com
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