Vegan Cuban Cuisine — Restaurant in Kendall

Update, January 2024. I ate here again and I cannot stress how wonderful it is. The ease of ordering electronically at the front is FANTASTIC (I was hesitant last time I came). Service was amazing. And, the food - soooo delicious. I don't particularly care for Cuban food, but I could eat THIS Cuban food day and night. The little seating area out front is so clean and charming. Get the Imperial Rice. Get it - it is plentiful to share and so delicious! Love this place!!

From before: NOTE: This little restaurant is completely VEGAN - there is no meat served - only delicious plant-based meat substitutes.

I couldn't believe that this wonderful little Cuban Restaurant was VEGAN and that I just discovered it! I ate here today and everything about it is delightful. Not only is the food delicious, atmosphere charming, and service exceptional - it is also very tech-savvy (which I am NOT) in ordering.

This is a strip type little mall with plenty of free parking. The restaurant has about 8 cute little wooden tables outside with plants all around and BIG FANS for the South Florida heat. You go up to the window to order.

The menu in front of the place and you order from it without a human. It is a touch screen with several categories (breakfast, entrees, apps, sandwiches, etc.) - and photos of the food you are ordering. You choose what you want, if you want sauces with it, the type of rice, beans, etc. Then you submit your order and pay with a card - all right in front of you. (You can also order on your phone and there is a thing there to tell you how, but I have no idea how to do that.) The restaurant front is an open window and a very nice young man is right inside to answer any questions. The menu ordering is super-simple once you get the hang of it. You submit your name, chose to-go or eat-in and in a few minutes your food is brought out by that young man.

I ordered the "chicken" plate that came with black beans (again choice of), rice (white, brown), plantains. I also ordered some "Boniato (Cuban Sweet Potato)" even though I had no idea what it was. The plate was fantastic and plenty of food and the Boniato - SO DELICIOUS (came with a little pink dipping sauce). If you go here, be SURE to order a side of them.

The young man who was bringing out the food and answering questions and doing everything was SO NICE. He was pleasant and very helpful with all my questions.

The containers that the food comes in is compostable (I love that) and the utensils are lightwood wood - very environmentally friendly!

This was such a pleasant dining experience for me and I am so happy to have found this yummy little...

Café Under the Palms: A Morning in Miami’s Cuban Vegan Rebellion

There’s a certain weight to eating Cuban food in Miami, especially when it’s something like this—vegan, health-conscious, a reinvention of the very thing that, for generations, was synonymous with comfort, home, and resilience. A breakfast burrito in a city where mornings are too humid for heavy food, stuffed with cauliflower, avocado, and kale—decidedly not the pan con lechón or the pastelito de guayaba of memory, but something new. A quiet kind of defiance, wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla.

It arrives in a ceramic bowl, cut cleanly down the middle, framed by plantain chips that are the only thing immediately familiar. I take the first bite. The scramble inside mimics egg, turmeric staining it just enough, while the avocado smooths out any sharp edges. The kale—fresh, dark, almost too alive—tastes like something my grandmother wouldn’t have known what to do with.

There’s something about Miami’s Cuban food scene that has always been about nostalgia. The exiles, their children, and now their grandchildren—each generation clinging to the flavors of the island while reinterpreting them, intentionally or not. Here, in a café that feels more like Tulum than Little Havana, the tradition bends even further. The smell of buttered Cuban toast and café con leche doesn’t linger in the air. Instead, there is oat milk, espresso served in glass jars, the sharp scent of ginger somewhere behind the bar.

I sip an iced coffee, dark and smooth, no sugar, no milk—something I wouldn’t have tolerated five years ago, when my metabolism was faster, when I didn’t wake up feeling sluggish, when my body wasn’t something I thought about in the morning. Now, in my own quiet shift, I think about what fuels me, what weighs me down. This breakfast is light, designed for movement, not meant to sink into me the way so many meals in this city do.

The café itself is modern, clean, the kind of place you find in a city where wellness is an industry, where every new spot feels designed for a certain kind of aspirational lifestyle. But there is comfort here, too—leather seats worn just enough, plants stretching toward the light, soft music that doesn’t demand attention. It is a space where people linger, where no one is in a hurry to leave.

I finish my plate slowly. Outside, the humidity waits, thick and pressing, but inside, there is still this moment—a quiet, unspoken thing. A city’s past and present, a body’s reckoning with itself. A breakfast that isn’t what it was supposed to be, but still, somehow,...

I hate to be writing a review on this place, because I always come here and recommend it to everyone I know. I love this place and so does my family, however, today left a bad taste in my mouth. My partner and I came in, ordered, and everything was fine. It didn’t seem busy but you never know. There was one other table and I noticed that they received the same exact food we ordered but it could’ve been a coincidence. We were sitting there for around 15-20 minutes, and usually they’re super quick. We waited another couple minutes and nothing, so I went up to the counter and mentioned how we haven’t received our food and that I noticed that the table in front us received the same exact things we ordered and they looked perplexed. It seemed like I was talking crazy and shortly after my assumptions were confirmed. They had a mixup and gave our food to the other table, which can happen anywhere and that’s not the problem but how they handled the situation and how the food came out is the problem. The situation was handled as if the people who worked there lacked customer service skills. I’m a restaurant manager and understand that in this industry you can make mistakes or have bad days, but your staff has to know how to handle guests and make sure that if a mistake does occur everything is done within their power to keep that guest happy and coming back. The food on the other hand was okay, but the thing that was upsetting was that the meat one of the empanadas we ordered was COLD like freezing cold. They offered to “reheat” the empanada, which by the way was “fried” and why would I want an empanada that’s frozen and you’re gonna stick in the microwave. Eventually, they remade the empanada but that took another 15-20 minutes. We got there around 2:40 and left an hour later. One of the workers came to apologize and I explained to her the situation and how I felt about my experience. All she could do was apologize and shortly after offered us a dessert even though we had already ordered one did not want another one. It was a joke. I don’t think I’ll be returning anytime soon or recommending this place after...