All through July, you can celebrate Ernest Hemingway’s birthday—he was born on July 21—with authentic Cuban food and drinks at Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar at The Quarter at Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City.
Chef and partner Guillermo Pernot will pay tribute to Papa by offering his creative spin on the traditional menus from El Floridita, one of Hemingway’s favorite Havana hangouts.
The writer never met a drink he didn’t like but his daiquiris were his favorite. In honor of National Daiquiri Day on July 19, Pernot has developed drink specials, specialty cocktails and bar bites.
“It is impossible to think of Ernest Hemingway without acknowledging how important Cuba was to him, and this menu is our tribute to one of the finest American authors and some of his favorites from Havana,” says Pernot, a two-time James Beard Award winner who connects diners to Cuba through his dinner series featuring native Cuban chefs, as well as culinary trips to Havana.
Pernot has concocted seven refreshing cocktails, priced at $9 a pop, including the Dinger, a blend of Hayman’s Old Tom Gin, Cuba Libre 5 Year Rum, muddled limes and grenadine with a candied ginger rim. Select El Floridita cocktails will be $5 during Cuba Libre’s daily Caippy Hour throughout the month of July.
The El Floridita dinner menu, served July 15-22, is a three-course, prix-fixe menu priced at $39. Options include: Crema Floridita, lobster Velouté soup with seafood medley or Cóctel de Camarones del Golfo al estilo Hemingway, fresh Gulf shrimp, poached and chilled, with Nuevo Cubano cocktail salsa; Papa y Mary, a surf and turf’of petit filet mignon with culantro béarnaise and lobster rings with enchilado sauce or Pargo “Ambos Mundos,” Malanga-crusted, crab-stuffed red snapper with vanilla and roasted sweet onion sauce; and Alaska Tropical, vanilla and chocolate ice cream and panatela cake with rum and mint liquor-flambéed meringue or Papa Hemingway Sorbeto.
In addition to Atlantic City, Cuba Libre has hip, friendly locations in Philadelphia,Orlando,Fla., and Washington,D.C.