Sparking a Cuban revelation, as in chefs

GUILLERMO Pernot may be Argentinean by birth, but his heart and palate belong to Cuba.

It's not just that Pernot's wife, Lucia, is a native Cuban whose family escaped Fidel Castro's communist regime in 1959 when she was just 9 months old. The Caribbean island-nation is also home to cuisine that, as far as the 55-year-old chef-partner at Old City's Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar is concerned, is second-to-none.

"It's a basic style of food," Pernot (pronounced per-NO) said in his Buenos Aires-forged accent during a recent interview at the chain's flagship 2nd Street location. (Cuba Libre also operates in Atlantic City, Washington and Orlando.)

"It has a little bit of Spanish in it, has a little bit of African in it, like Brazilian cuisine does. It has a little bit of Chinese in it, and Chinese is one of my favorite types of cuisine . . . a little French, a little South American, too - and Caribbean. That's why I'm attracted to the food. It's very simple.

"But after being married 24 years, it's more of [by] osmosis that I'm related to the food than anything else."

The Wynnewood resident and father of daughter Viviana, 18, and son Marcelo, 15, came to Cuba Libre - whose fare is exclusively Cuban - six years ago from his award-winning BYOB ¡Pasión! He helped introduce Philly's foodarazzi to Nuevo Latino cooking. But he didn't set foot in Cuba until late in 2010.

His first visit was "emotional," because he was accompanied by his sister-in-law, who hadn't been there since her family's flight to freedom in the late 1950s. "I spent 11 days, and it was very interesting," he said. "I met my wife's family for the first time." He also did some culinary exploring and discovered that he had been on the right track.

"For all these years I've been making Cuban food," he said. "You always read about it and you see all the restaurants and you have an idea, but you don't really know exactly until you go and visit a country and eat the food. Now you are experiencing exactly what you are doing.

"And I can tell you that we were right all the way along. We were doing the right mixture of spices, the new style of cuisine; we were doing the old style of cuisine. We were doing all the right things."

Pernot returned twice in 2011; both sojourns were strictly professional.

"On the second trip," he continued, "I spent two weeks by myself - no family - just talking to the chefs and finding them out and spending time with them, going to the market and in the kitchen and cooking together. And the third time I did it again. I had a really, really great time."

To facilitate his quest for gustatory knowledge, Pernot, a James Beard Award winner, had a stroke of luck in the person of a leading Cuban foodie, Anna Hernandez, whom he met through a mutual friend.

"I met this woman [Hernandez] who lives in Havana, and she is an old teacher of gastronomy," he explained. "I said, 'This is what I want to do. Give me six or seven chefs to talk to.' She introduced me to all of them."

Pernot was gratified by their response.

"They don't know who I am. They never heard of me before. But we built a relationship that was so deep. I went to their homes; I met their families. They invited me to lunch, to dinner. We went to this farm together. We cooked together in their homes."

It was on his trips that Pernot discovered the paladar, which he described as a very small restaurant, usually seating about 20 people and usually situated in a chef's home. This custom, combined with the friendships he forged with the chefs, was nothing short of inspiring.

"I said, 'This is my proposal; this is my dream: I'd like to bring you all to the United States [to] make dinner in [Philly and Washington] and show who you are and what Cuban cuisine is like,' " he recalled.

"I told them, 'I want to make sure people don't think Cuban cuisine is rice and beans and picadillo [the ground-beef stew that is a traditional peasant dish]. I want you to show America that Cuban food has changed and it's very avant garde.' "

Thus was born Cuba Libre's "Pop-Up Paladares," a series of four three-day events that will showcase a quartet of Havana's top stove jockeys. The first is set for the 2nd Street restaurant Wednesday through Jan. 13. It will feature chef Luis Alberto Alfonso Perez, who owns four acclaimed restaurants in the same Havana building.

With Pernot assisting, Perez, known simply as Chef Lucio in his hometown, will present a four-course feast of crudo de langosta (lobster salad, pineapple sorbet with truffle-oil-infused black sesame seeds); ravioles (eggplant-wrapped ravioli with lamb); jabalí (baby wild boar rib chop) and flan de queso (Pategras cheese flan).

Given the United States' continuing refusal to formally recognize the Castro regime, bringing Cuban chefs here hasn't been easy.

"It was very difficult to arrange their passage," Pernot said. "First you have to go through the U.S. State Department to bring them into the United States. So it's a huge project to do that. Once you have that visa, you have to ask the Cuban government to let them go. And that's a bigger process, because we don't have any influence with the government."

And although Pernot is eagerly anticipating the paladares, he acknowledged that hosting the chefs will make demands on his time and energy.

"They don't speak English; I have to do everything," he lamented. "I have to pick them up at the airport, give them the tour of Washington and Philadelphia, take them shopping . . . My God! I even have to take them for cheesesteaks."