A blend of Spanish, African and Caribbean influences, Cuban cuisine is essentially a “people’s cuisine,” making the most of a relatively limited pantry and basic culinary techniques. When Anamaria Prada and husband Jorge Mejia emigrated from Bogota, Colombia to South Florida 11 years ago, the already seasoned restaurateurs thought it would be fairly easy to transfer their skill set from one country to the other. It wasn’t. “It was completely different,” Prada says. “There were a lot of regulations and laws we had to understand” before they could open Cuban Café, a charming and surprisingly stylish little restaurant in an obscure shopping center in East Boca.
