Havana 59 Downtown

Pre-COVID, this restaurant was amazing and the food delicious! Post-COVID, it is absolutely horrific.

First, we went in and left our name with the hostess. She said it would be a 20 min wait and we would have to sit in the smoking section. Ugh, but we agreed. She said we will call you or you can call us. Odd. We then went for a walk. We never received a call to tell us our table was ready, so we went back. Our table was given to someone else. We were told it would be another 20-30 min wait.

Another person in our party had called to reserve a table and interestingly, he received a call to say the table was ready.

We are seated. We get water. I ask for straws. We get unwrapped straws with the hostesses hands have touched all over. Sorry, unwrapped straws are a huge no no in our germ-filled world.

We ordered calamari and egg rolls for our appetizers because they were delicious at our last visit. The calamari was tough, and the breading fell right off. It appeared to have come from a bag of frozen, pre-breaded calamari. The taste was blah.

The egg rolls were under cooked and lackluster.

The coup de Grace were the entrées. I ordered taste of habana with two different types of meat. The rice was dry, hard and crusty (left under the warmer for way too long), the meat looked it had just been slopped together (it didn't taste bad, but wasn't good), the tostones were hard as a hockey puck, and the bean tasted canned. This entree was $32.

The fresh fish was ordered. It was Chilean sea bass at a price of $42. The fish came out whole with no deboning. Eating it was a chore with bones constantly getting stuck in my SIL's throat. There was no sauce with it. The zucchini was drab, soggy and lifeless.

Two entrees and two appetizers with one cocktail set us back $180. The waitress was good and attentive. This experience will not be repeated. The owner needs to hire chefs with more experience if he wishes to remain in business.