El Cubo de Cuba

Specialties

El Cubo is a small, counter service, casual style restaurant serving up Cuban food in the style that you may find yourself eating in someone’s home in Havana. The menu is small, but each meal comes with a choice of side and plenty of flavor. Cuban food, unlike other Latin foods, is never spicy, not fancy, and doesn’t haved anything like cilantro. El Cubo is striving to keep it’s food traditional and not add anything like hot spices or extra sauces (like banana ketchup, which is Filipino). The dishes served are not bland, however! Plentiful amounts of garlic, onion, oregano, cumin, bay, and citrus will make your mouth happy! Their mojo sauce is to die for (citrus, garlic onion sauce served on pork or in the Cuban sandwich) and the black beans are full of flavors, too, which makes them great to mix in with your rice and pork. The ropa vieja is like eating fantastic meat spaghetti, and the local chicken is fall off the bone tender. Top it all off with a perfect mojito, and enjoy!

History

Established in 2010.

El Cubo de Cuba was started by Emily Roskam and Milko Vigil Escalera (from Havana, Cuba) in 2010. They started out in a tiny 7 by 11 foot cart, serving almost the same menu they have now, at 10^th and Alder in downtown Portland. The cart was an instant hit, and within a year, a 2^nd cart was opened at 5^th and Oak downtown. Now, after a long renovation of a shell of a building that used to be a fast food taco place, El Cubo has closed their carts, and are focused solely on their cozy and colorful restaurant in SE Portland. The food is just as great, if not better than from the carts, and the atmosphere is great, plus, now they can serve up classic and unique rum drinks and espresso. El Cubo de Cuba has always been focused on having a small menu and doing it right, rather than a huge menu of sub-​par dishes, and have always embraced an environmentally friendly business model.