Some restaurants demand reservations made weeks in advance and dressing to impress; others are the kind you pull over for at 2 a.m. and show up to as you are. West Palm Beach’s Havana is firmly, blessedly, one of the latter.
A fixture on South Dixie Highway since 1992, Havana Restaurant is a place that practically every longtime local has a story about, whether they hung out there in high school, catered Havana for their wedding, stop in for a mid-day cortadito every time they pass by or simply have made it their pick-me-up of choice for more than three decades.
The Cuban restaurant has a proper dining room inside, but its real claim to fame is the 24-hour walk-up window, where you can satisfy a craving for Cuban comfort food any hour of the day. The full menu is available around the clock, so there’s no such thing as having to order off the late-night menu.
My usual suspects? Depending on the time of day, it could be salty tostones, a strong café con leche, a classic Cuban sandwich, or, because dessert is always on my meal plan: a generous slice of tres leches. (I dream of Havana’s cool, sweet, creamy take on the traditional dessert.)
But one of my favorite orders here is actually breakfast: an egg-and-cheese sandwich on Cuban bread is a delicious departure from the usual bagel, and proof that Havana is just as good a stop first thing in the morning as it is after a (long) night out.
And while Palm Beach County’s dining scene has evolved considerably, and impressively, over the years, Havana is one place that will never need to change a thing—at least as far as we locals are concerned.