Pop-ups and supper clubs are popular dining trends in DC, but in Cuba, the tradition has long been a way for private eateries to serve diners in a landscape dominated by government-owned restaurants. Individual or family-owned operations, known as paladares, were illegal up until 1993, but the custom continues in homes and hidden-away spaces across the island. Now Cuba Libre chef-restaurateur Guillermo Pernot is bringing the tradition to Washington by inviting a number of Cuban paladar owners to cook special dinners at his Penn Quarter location. The next in the lineup is scheduled for June 12 through 14 at 6 and 8:30 PM, with Pernot and chef Alain Rivera of Havana’s Doctor Café.
We attended the first in the series back in January with chef Luis Alberto Alfonso Perez, and it was a fun and unusual evening. It was the toque’s first trip to the United States, not to mention his first time inside a Whole Foods to harvest ingredients for the meal. After the four courses concluded and we’d sipped the last of our rum, Perez, with Pernot translating, fielded questions about running a restaurant in Cuba and what it was like to cook in the US for the first time. If you’re looking for a pop-up dining experience that you literally can’t get otherwise, it’s a good one to check out.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
