Say ‘hola’ to this new cuban café

It’s understandable that Oahu’s small population size of 1 million — vs. a pre-pandemic count of 8 million in New York City or 4 million in Los Angeles — has led to little diversity in the local food scene. It feels like reason to jump for joy whenever a restaurateur is willing to take a risk and try something new, as Luis Castro has done by opening Castro’s Cuban Food in Waikiki, a small café with a bold approach to food.

Castro grew up in Bogotá, Colombia; and arrived in the U.S. to study industrial engineering. Along the way, he gravitated to culinary endeavors, working in restaurants from Wyoming to Seattle. Castro was preparing to move to New York five years ago when a friend who landed a job at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani invited him to work with him on Oahu. Castro eventually moved on to work as executive chef at Morimoto Asia Waikiki and chef de cuisine at StripSteak. When the pandemic shut food establishments down, he knew it was time to start thinking about launching a business of his own.

Latin-American cuisine in Honolulu is such a rarity that Castro believed he would have trouble finding an audience for his native Colombian cooking. People understand Cubanos and tamales, so Castro thought he’d start there and expand into Colombian fare later. Colombia shares some of the same Afro-Caribbean spirit of its neighbor to the north, and both are set with a climate conducive to growing the same ingredients such as cassava (yuca), plantains, maize and tropical fruits. Castro also associated the eye-catching colors of Cuban architecture with Hawaii’s tropical vibe and set out to create food that amounts to a visual and flavorful experience.

Castro started with tamales, using one of his grandmother’s recipes that, at home, was reserved only for special occasions because of its time-consuming process. Castro makes his tamales from scratch with organic corn masa and sofrito, without lard, to make them more healthful and easier to digest. Many of his specialty ingredients are sourced from Masienda in Los Angeles, a company that works with farmers in Mexico to support organic heirloom corn varieties.

Vegan tamales ($14) are loaded with seasonal vegetables, most recently, kabocha, carrots and cauliflower, steamed in a banana leaf wrap and served with a colorful array of pickled vegetables, jalapeños, thin-sliced radishes and nasturtium leaves, accompanied by a flavorful mushroom chimichurri sauce. The brisket tamale ($16) is the same, but topped with slices of 12-hour braised, grass-fed beef.

The brisket, or ropa vieja ($14), also turns up in a ciabatta sandwich with grilled Maui onions, pepper jack and green goddess aioli. The brisket is thick cut, with a jerky-like texture that’s drier than most Americans would expect.

If you’re there early, start light with a papaya bowl ($14) with Westside-raised Mexican papaya as the base. In this dish, the skin has been peeled away and the whole papaya is presented as a bowl containing lilikoi yogurt, vegan chia pudding and poi topped with crunchy, housemade granola and seasonal fruits like pineapple, dragonfruit, blueberries and starfruit.

I’m not a big fan of starfruit, which is generally sour and stiff, so I was shocked by its sweet, jelly-like consistency, achieved through preserving it in simple syrup with vanilla bean. It’s a technique used in Colombia to preserve the fruit to last beyond its short season, as well as to improve its flavor.

The starfruit also appears with the café’s tres leches French toast ($18) — three layers of brioche soaked in condensed milk, evaporated milk and cream; and is then baked to achieve the texture of Japanese honey sponge cake. It’s finished with rum caramel, Madagascar vanilla whipped cream, bruleed bananas and peel-and-eat lychee.

You can’t have a Cuban café without the Cubano ($15), a sandwich that features ciabatta filled with house roast pork, Pono Pork ham, and roasted garlic aioli. My favorite dishes are the savory avocado toast and choripan ($16), or sausage sandwich. Choripan is an Argentine specialty that combines chorizo and chimichurri. In Colombia, the sandwich features longanisa and a chimichurri comprising cilantro, as well as the more traditional parsley. Castro uses Portuguese linguica sausage that tastes fresh and light, a joy when combined with his signature mushroom chimichurri, garlic aioli, lettuce and pickled vegetables.

The avocado toast starts with a thick slab of olive bread, which, like all of Castro’s loaves, is sourced from L.A.’s Bread Lounge. Over this goes a coat of salted black bean hummus, layers of thick-sliced avocado, purple radishes, pickled red jalapeños, red and yellow floral garnishes, and green parsley mojo.

Smaller dishes — like vegan poke and curried lentils — round out the selection, along with a Mediterranean salad of potatoes, olive oil and olives, and yuca horneada ($6), the starchy root revealing its soft potatoey quality as fries meant to be dipped in chimichurri sauce.

As more people embrace Latin fare, Castro has plans to eventually introduce dinners that include dishes from Peru, and throughout South and Central Americas. By then, I’m sure he’ll need a much bigger venue.

Castro’s Cuban Food

2113 Kalakaua Ave., Waikiki
Food: ****
Service: ****
Ambiance: ***
Value: ****
Call: 808-630-0480
Hours: 7 A.M.-2 P.M. Tuesdays to Sundays
Prices: About $60 for two

Nadine Kam’s restaurant visits are unannounced and paid for by Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Follow Nadine on Instagram (@nadinekam) or on YouTube (youtube.com/nadinekam).