Havana Restaurant & Cocktail Lounge

The mojito is where Havana Restaurant & Cocktail Lounge starts the conversation, not where it ends one. The bar runs the classic alongside a long flavour list — mango, pineapple, passion fruit, habanero lime, coconut, cranberry, spicy mango — and treats the drink as a statement of intent rather than a token nod to Cuba. That posture carries through the rest of the cocktail card, from the Havana Colada to the Habla Matador's dark rum and spicy mango, and it sets the terms for everything the kitchen does in this downtown Niagara Falls dining room: Cuban food meant to be eaten with a glass in hand and a long evening ahead.

The food holds up its end. Ropa Vieja is the comfort centre of the menu — beef braised six hours and hand-shredded, folded with tomato, bell peppers, roasted garlic, onions, and cilantro, plated over congris with fried yuca. D's Paella is the order for the table, a Cuban-style pan of smoked sausage, roasted pork, grilled chicken, and shrimp over Spanish yellow rice that takes close to half an hour to come together. Havana Roasted Pork arrives as an eight-hour roasted leg under house mojo criollo. Around those anchors sit the smaller Cuban pleasures: croquetas and tostones rellenos with daily fillings, a cold Cuban shrimp cocktail, and tres leches cake soaked in sweet milk under Italian meringue to finish.