Bar Havana Club

Address: Avenida del Puerto 262, esq. Sol, Havana, Cuba
Tel: +53 (7) 861 8051 / 862 4108
Website: view Bar Havana Club’s website
Door: Open door
Style: Cocktail bar

Review

Bar Havana Club
Address: Avenida del Puerto 262, esq. Sol, Habana Vieja, Cuba
Tel:
www.havana-club.com/en/havana-heritage/havana-club-museum
Type: Cocktail bar

Attached to the Havana Club museum, this purports to be an authentic recreation of a 1930s-style bar. It's traditionally the last stop on the tour of the museum, but we can't say you'd miss out massively if you simply went straight to the bar - the tour guides are generally catering to those who know little to nothing about distillation or rum production, particularly if there's a coach-load of tourists, and ours bizarrely kept referring to the 'schnapps' that comes out of the still. It's interesting to watch sugar cane being pressed by hand while you wait for the tour, but the fake displays of stills and an aging warehouse and toy train set running around a model of a sugar refinery - make it all a bit child's play, so we sneaked back the way we came and went for an early Daiquiri.

There'll probably be a band playing in the bar. Sit among various items of vintage bric-a-brac such as cash registers and old radio sets. The bar itself is good looking, with old school slam-door fridges underneath, and predictably, scores of Havana Club bottles on display. Here they'll unflinchingly make you a shaken Daiquiri, but the attitude is kind of tired - almost as if they're conscious it's not quite a proper bar - and the quality is only so-so.