Still, I could imagine Castañeda's parents here on a visit from Brooklyn recounting their amazing tales of escape from Castro's revolution. The stolen midnight plane to Miami. The friend's betrayal that left his father shot and nearly dead. It feels like they'd belong, because this lovely spot exudes a familial warmth.
In fact, Castañeda runs it with his own 24-year-old son, Michael. The only thing missing to complete the circle of this roots homage is a kitchen worthy of the journey. (Unfortunately, that's kind of important.)
Castañeda, 45, spent his career in tech support for the airline industry before embarking on ¡Cuba!, his first restaurant venture. But as someone who grew up around authentic Cuban food - his parents ran a butcher shop and neighborhood restaurant in the Bronx - he makes a crucial mistake. It's the presumption that good ethnic home-cooking can't fly in Chestnut Hill without an ambitious young American chef to give it the high-rent-district makeover.
"This [menu] is what you'd get at the Havana Yacht Club," says Castañeda, "or what it might have been had the situation been different."
Unfortunately, the young chefs to whom Castañeda has entrusted this lofty mission (already his second kitchen crew) don't yet have the chops to carry it off - they can hardly even cook black beans.
My first bowl of bean soup here was lukewarm. The second bowl was heated but missing much Latin heart, its soffrito backbone so weak that the flavors barely had a pulse. Decent black beans are Cuban 101. This didn't bode well.
