Buena Vista Cuban Café - Houston

[JohnS]

If you are ever in Houston, how about checking out the Buena Vista Cuban Café along Washington Corridor, if you haven't done so already?

Behind the scenes with a Houston restaurant's cigar sommelier

Buena Vista Cuban Café along the Washington Corridor offers hand-rolled cigars, live music, authentic food and much more during its weekend events.

By Meredith Nudo,Contributor - Aug 12, 2024

Close up on man's hands holding a tray with fresh cigars - stellalevi/Getty Images

Buena Vista Cuban Café along Houston's Washington Corridor opened in 2023, bringing delicious island fare to the city courtesy of owners Roberto and Esther Diaz. But they also decided to add some spicy, smoky flavors to the menu beyond just the dishes and drink—namely, their spot is unique in being one of the only restaurants in Houston to keep a full-time cigar sommelier, Rolando Gonzalez, on staff. 

"The cigar is such a big part of Cuba … So we wanted to include it in this experience. It wasn't only about the food, we wanted people to come and have a full experience of a Cuban night. So that was the idea behind that," Roberto Diaz said. "I thought there was something so different that people don't get to see often and would appreciate it. I think that it's been a great success. People really love it."

Tobacco has been an integral element of Cuban culture for millennia. The two became inextricably intertwined on an international level after Spanish colonizers started snapping up tobacco and profiting off of it at the expense of the indigenous Caribbean peoples. "The Spanish saw Taíno smoking these leaves and they said, 'What is it?' They didn't know," Diaz said. "That's how tobacco went around the world. Spain took it to Europe, and then they took it to Asia … So I think that that's one of the main reasons why it is so known in Cuba."

Because of this ancient association, cigars play a central role at the café's festive Cuban Night events, which include food, drinks and live music, running from 8 p.m. until 11 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays—things run a little later, from 9 p.m. to midnight, on Saturdays. Cigars, all hand-rolled by Gonzalez, are given out as a gratis accompaniment to the memorable evening events.

Diaz explained that his goal is to make patrons "feel that they went on a vacation all the way to Havana or Miami," and that finding the right cigar sommelier to make that happen was challenging given the limited Cuban influence on Texas culture. Before Gonzalez moved to the U.S. about a year ago, he worked for 10 years at Cohiba, one of "the most famous factory in the world of cigars" according to Diaz, owing to Fidel Castro's favor. 

The process of receiving certification in cigar rolling takes an entire year to complete. During his training, Gonzalez was mentored by four different teachers through the four different stages, and "they would test you at each level," Gonzalez said through a translator. He learned how to identify 12 unique cigar flavors in blind taste tests and also learned which tobacco leaves to use at which steps in the rolling process, as well as how to cure and cut the final product for the optimal smoking experience. 

  

 

The multi-step process Gonzalez utilizes at Buena Vista begins with a flat leaf about the size of his forearm called a capota, or "first wrapper." - Meredith Nudo

Having a full-time cigar sommelier adds another sensory layer to the dining experience at Buena Vista, and helps promote the skill and artistry behind Gonzalez's cigar rolling. It takes a few hours to complete an entire cigar. The multi-step process Gonzalez utilizes at Buena Vista begins with a flat leaf about the size of his forearm called a capota, or "first wrapper." He smooths it out and weighs it down before adding the "second leaf," a dry layer intended to make lighting the cigar easier and to help it maintain a more consistent burn. 

After that, Gonzalez adds two different types of filler tobacco to create a more complex flavor and aromatic profile. Once all the leaves are stacked, he lines them up along their veins, rolls them up by hand, and cuts off the jagged ends. From there, the cigars are smoothed out and placed in a mold, where they're rotated every 30 minutes for anywhere from 90 minutes to two hours. Gonzalez then places the rounded filling inside a wrapper, also made of tobacco—there's no paper to be found on his tidy desk—before twisting one end and cutting the other so it's ready to smoke. 

Some of the final cigars appear darker, though this is more an indicator of strength rather than age. Typically, the darker the cigar, the bolder the flavor. However, even Gonzalez's lighter-shaded works boast a warm, toasty flavor and a rich, deep aroma that lingers on the lips and tongue, and in the air, long after its smoldering end has been snuffed out.

Diaz wants to make sure the cigars served at Buena Vista complement the menu, noting that they "pair more to the drinks" than the food. If patrons want to wait a while before smoking something deftly crafted by Gonzalez's hands, Diaz said the cigars "don't go bad as long as you keep it at a certain temperature." They can also be aged to enrich the flavor. 

The effort to introduce Houstonians to Cuban cigar rolling as its own unique, historic, and highly skilled art form—a satisfyingly smoky, spicy one at that—has created enough fans to make it a routine offering at Buena Vista, one the owners didn't initially realize would blow up in popularity.

"When we started, we didn't know if we were going to offer cigar rolling all the time. The people demanded it afterwards. People were calling and saying, 'Hey, do you have the cigar rolling today?'" Diaz said. "That's how we ended up having it all the time."

Source: https://www.chron.com/culture/article/houston-cuban-cigar-sommelier-19628344.php