7 Best Restaurants in Eastern Cuba, Cuba

The Italian fare—pizza, pastas, and seafood dishes—is good by local standards. The white-tile, European café–style setting overlooking the plaza is pleasant, and the staff is friendly.

This Canadian chain restaurant serves quality pasta dishes, salads, and pizza in a low-key, outdoor setting. Look for the yellow sign.

The well-prepared seafood dishes and extensive wine list befit Zun Zún's elegant Vista Alegre setting. You can dine outdoors on a wraparound porch adorned with potted ferns or inside amid the unique decor of the house's former owner, an Arab merchant.

Although this state-run spot serves much of the same fare as its many like-owned neighbors, its setting in a restored colonial mansion on Plaza de Dolores is terrific. Fans spin slowly overhead from a lofty wooden ceiling, and large windows open to the plaza's northwest corner.

At this restaurant in the Fuerte de la Punta you can dine on traditional food 24 hours a day. Tables are set within the old fort walls. Just outside are wonderful bay views. Live music and dance shows take place nightly.

In the former mansion of the rum-making Bacardí family, this restaurant is an old Santiago standard. Although the dishes lack a sense of adventure, you can't beat the ambience. The formal dining room, with its antique furnishings, is particularly striking; the informal back patio, whose offerings vary only slightly from those inside, is a great spot for a drink.

Conversation and music linger in the air at this authentic Cuban restaurant. Long white flowers known as campanitas blancas hang from the trellis of a broad interior courtyard. A marble staircase leads up to a narrow second floor and its long bar. Diners at tables on the balcony survey Plaza Dolores.