Anastasio Cárdenas No. 518
David Aloma Aguíla, the owner and chef of Davimart, says the secret to the success of his paladar relates to its open kitchen, which he designed and built himself with Spanish tiles. David explained,“In my paladar, first one sees the fresh food being prepared, then one smells the fragrant aromas of the food cooking, and after that experience of the senses, are the delicious tastes of the food I’ve prepared for my guests.”
David first trained as a mechanical engineer, but he says,“I always wanted to be a chef.” His father died when he was nine years old and his mother died when he was nineteen, so he had to cook and survive on his own from an early age. In the early 1990s, during the “special period” in Cuba, when running a paladar was not allowed, David opened a restaurant “under cover,” and bought his ingredients on the black market. At that time, there were no farmers’ markets allowed in Cuba, only government-run stores with rationed and limited amounts of food available per person, which had to be obtained with a Libreta de Abastecimiento (Supplies Booklet).
