Nuevo’s Cubano’s Restaurant – Fort Lauderdale, Florida

This morning we awoke to a sunny, gorgeous 80 degree morning, so we put the top down on the convertible and headed to downtown Fort Lauderdale to visit a one-of-a-kind restaurant called Nuevo’s Cubano’s, a tiny Cuban restaurant we’ve passed by many times and always wanted to try.

The eatery is situated only feet from the traffic on Andrews Avenue, one of the busiest streets in Fort Lauderdale. When we arrived and pulled into the parking lot behind the building, our adventure REALLY began! 

We got out of the car and headed toward the nearest door…but that door was marked “Private.” We continued to walk around the building, looking for an entrance, but all the doors to the building were the same…marked “Private.” And that’s when reality set in.

There was no entrance. There was no inside seating. There was no real “restaurant”…just the counter out front! (But that only made us more excited about our breakfast adventure.)

The decor in the parking lot was as close as I’ve been to Havana, and I was fascinated by the interesting objects that were brightly painted and transformed into beautiful artwork.   

The “restaurant seating” is all around the edges of their parking lot, in addition to the stools at the counter in the front of the building where we finally placed our orders.

Spanish music was blaring even at the early morning hour, which helped to drown out the sound of the rush hour traffic speeding by. (I TOLD you it was an adventure. I LOVED it!)

Peepaw and I hadn’t had an authentic Cuban breakfast since we vacationed on South Beach in Miami many years ago, so I asked the young cook to please make me anything he wanted, with only one rule: it had to be REALLY authentic. His face broke into a huge grin and he started to work on our prepared-to-order feast…

And what did Peter, the cook, make for me? A Cuban Omelet, filled with caramelized onions and peppers, mushrooms, a thick slice of ham, and some delicious white queso blanco cheese. He also added two HUGE slices of Cuban bread, lightly toasted and heavily buttered! He even added a leaf of cilantro to “pretty up” the styrofoam plate. 

I paired it with Cuban coffee, Cafe con Leche style. After the initial shock of how sweet the first sip was…delicious! 

Peepaw was less adventurous. He ordered eggs with bacon and toasted Cuban bread. (We can’t all be thrill seekers!)

Peter was working alone, so he was too busy to share details about the restaurant, popular with locals as well as tourists. So after we returned home, I did some more research on this interesting Fort Lauderdale spot, and found this great article by Claudia Dawson, a reporter for the Broward Palm Beach New Times newspaper. 

Love of family is written all over the place: in both the photos in the tiny kitchen and in the menu items.  And those “Private” signs on all of the doors? They’re there for a reason, since most of the small building was the boyhood home of the restaurant owner! So when you eat at Nuevo’s Cubano’s, you really do feel like you’re part of the family.

I always say there is no better way for us to learn about another culture than to eat their food and watch them prepare it. And today was a wonderful trip to Havana…without a passport.