Postcards from Cuba with Chef Guillermo Pernot

Cuba Libre chef, partner and restaurateur Guillermo Pernot is nationally famous for his colorful Cuban cuisine created from both traditional and contemporary flavors. The restaurant, which has locations in Philadelphia, Atlantic City, Washington D.C. and Orlando, is where Pernot showcases his culinary specialty: Cuban cuisine with a nuevo twist.  His vision is to celebrate Cuban cuisine if it had continued to develop past its 1950s golden era.

Pernot, a two-time James Beard Foundation award winner and a native of Argentina, has always been inspired by Cuban cuisine, but it was his wife, Lucia, and her family that made it personal for him. Her great-great-grandfather was Cuba’s third president and her mother’s culinary traditions and skills inspired his own love of cooking. “Lucia left Cuba when she was 9 months old. I traveled to Cuba twice before visiting with her. It was wonderful to experience it together, to be able to show her the Cuba I fell in love with.”

Traveling to Cuba is essential for Pernot, especially when it is time to change the menu at the restaurants. While there, he makes it a point to examine what is going on in the food world. He speaks to friends, colleagues and food lovers to find out who is making noise in the restaurant world. “I visit Cuba and taste the food that the young chefs are doing. I see what they are doing with presentation and different flavors. Remember, they don’t have a lot to work with, so I marry their ideas with mine to come up with innovative dishes. ” 

“But,” he explains, “the menu at Cuba Libre will always reflects the culinary traditions of Cuba.”

Next up, what Pernot learned in Cuba and the dishes he’s bringing back. 

Techniques like slow braising, a foundation in Cuban cooking, are respected and used. “I’ve leaned that Cuban food is very simple. The flavors are very precise and there are very few ingredients involved.  We are finding out that they are meant to go together. ” What’s different? “We have access to higher quality ingredients here and that does help.”  Meat, he explains, is one ingredient that is too expensive to splurge on in Cuba. “What they can do with a cheap cut of meat is amazing.” Replace it with what we have access to here, but keep the technique and flavors the same, and Cuba Libre’s signature nuevo Cuban cuisine is born.

Inspiration is not the only thing he brings back with him from Cuba. “Every trip, I travel to about 20 restaurants. Out of the 20 chefs I meet, I choose four or five to come back to the States and be part of a series of guest chef dinners.”  He calls the series the Pop Up Paladar. Paladar is a term that refers to the small family-run or privatelyo-owned restaurants that, as explained by Chef Pernot, offer “an intimate alternative to the overrun tourist traps of Havana.”

“It’s been our mission to bring our guests closer to Cuban culture, and it’s amazing to see them truly embrace it.” 

In 2011, for the 10th anniversary of Cuba Libre, Pernot’s postcards from the trip (like the one above), real stories and memories written for his staff and guests who could not join him, were compiled.  In 2012, Cuba Libre hosted the first visiting Cuban chef to cook in the U.S. since the embargo. This summer the final two chefs, in the first series will make their stateside debut.

If you can’t make it to one of the  dinners, you still have an opportunity to experience authentic Cuban cuisine with Guillermo. Last year, the chef guided a cultural and culinary tour of a dozen food lovers through the urban paladars, coffee plantains and historical landmarks of Cuba. While there, they got a first-hand look at the changing landscape of Cuban cuisine, prepared dishes like Papas Rellano and visited markets like the famous Mercado Cuatro Caminos  with Cuba’s top culinary talent. 

Next up, one of Pernot’s Cuban recipes.

“The idea was to show Americans that what we were doing all this time, for the last 12 years, at Cuba Libre was the right thing. People eat Cuban food and don’t know what it is because they have never been there. So, I brought people there to show them what it was really like.”

The trip, which was a first-come-first-served opportunity, was so successful Chef Pernot hopes to do it again this summer. “I would like to try for June or July. Any later will be too hot.” If the logistics of the trip can’t be finalized in time, it will happen in 2014, again on a first-come-first-served basis.

Chef Pernot will continue to plan the trips for the public as long as there is interest.  “The people are just so beautiful, warm and humble. Their spirit is amazing. Meeting them is worth the trip alone. “

Malanga Fritters 

• 1 1/4 pound malanga, grated
• 1 1/2 eggs, beaten
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 tablespoon Kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons culantro, chopped
• 2 tablespoons garlic cloves, microplaned
• 7 ounces jalapeño chiles, seeded and chopped
• 1 ounce garlic cloves, chopped
• 4 tablespoons fish sauce

Get the full recipe.