Florida Cuban Cuisine History — Florida

Cuban cuisine in Florida represents one of the state's most deeply rooted culinary traditions, shaped by two distinct waves of migration separated by nearly a century. The first wave arrived in the late 1880s, when cigar manufacturer Vicente Martínez Ybor relocated his factory to Tampa, drawing Cuban, Spanish, and Italian workers to the neighborhood that would bear his name. According to USF Tampa Library Florida Studies curator Andy Huse, Tampa held the nation's largest Cuban population for more than half a century before Miami became the culture's epicenter. The second and larger wave followed Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, when Cuban exiles concentrated in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, building a culinary culture that EBSCO Research Starters describes as the cultural and political center of the Cuban community of the entire United States. The cuisine that took root in both cities — built around the Cuban sandwich, ropa vieja, lechón asado, croquetas, black beans and rice, and the cafecito — has defined Florida's food identity across more than a century and continues to operate through landmark institutions, multi-generational family businesses, and formal civic recognition.

The earliest documented Cuban culinary presence in Florida is rooted in Ybor City, the Tampa neighborhood that grew rapidly after Vicente Martínez Ybor established his cigar factory there in the late 1880s. The dense concentration of Cuban, Spanish, and Italian factory workers created immediate demand for affordable, sustaining food — vendors, bakeries, and cafés organized around the rhythms of cigar production. The cigar economy underwrote the development of Cuban bread, the Cuban sandwich, and a communal coffee culture, all of which have documented origins in this working-class Ybor City context.

The institution most closely associated with that history is La Segunda Central Bakery, founded in 1915 by Juan Moré, a Catalan-born soldier who first encountered Cuban bread while fighting in the Spanish-American War in Cuba. According to Tampa Historical, after the war Moré did not return to Spain but instead settled in Tampa, where the thriving cigar industry was powered by Cuban, Spanish, and Italian immigrants. Moré joined a co-op of bakers and cigar makers to open three bakeries — La Primera, La Segunda, and La Tercera — in Ybor City. When the other two folded, he purchased La Segunda outright. The bakery's signature loaf is baked with a palmetto leaf pressed along the top, creating the characteristic split that distinguishes Cuban bread from other styles. As of a 2025 USF News report, La Segunda operates four locations across the Tampa Bay area under fourth-generation ownership by Anthony Copeland Moré and produces approximately 22,000 loaves per day, six days a week, shipping to Texas, New York, Boston, and Alaska.

The Columbia Restaurant, established in Ybor City in 1905, is documented as Florida's oldest restaurant. Its identity is inseparable from Cuban and Spanish culinary tradition, and its longevity reflects the depth of the Cuban community's institutional presence in Tampa across more than a century.

Miami's Little Havana — La Pequeña Habana — emerged as a distinct Cuban culinary and cultural center following the mass exodus triggered by Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. EBSCO Research Starters documents the neighborhood as the focal point for Cuban immigration to the United States following the Cuban Revolution and describes it as the cultural and political center not only of Miami's Cuban American community but of the Cuban community of the entire United States. The SW 8th Street corridor — Calle Ocho — became the commercial and social spine of this community, hosting restaurants, bakeries, and the walk-up coffee windows known as ventanitas.

The contrast with Tampa's experience was direct. As Atlanta Magazine has reported, the same Cuban Revolution that built Miami's Cuban culinary community effectively curtailed Ybor City's Cuban cultural economy, severing the ongoing immigration that had sustained Tampa's Cuban enclave. By the time Ybor City was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1974, its role had shifted from active Cuban cultural center to a preserved record of an earlier era. Miami's Little Havana, by contrast, was still receiving new arrivals and building institutions through the 1970s and beyond.

The most prominent of those institutions is Versailles Restaurant on Calle Ocho, which opened in 1971 according to Miami New Times. Founder Felipe Valls Sr., a Cuban exile, is credited on the restaurant's own website as the first person to develop the walk-up window concept — the ventanita — that has since been replicated across Miami and beyond. The ventanita serves Cuban espresso (cafecito), cortadito, colada, and café con leche to pedestrians through a street-facing window, and the Versailles website describes La Ventanita as a customary stop for locals functioning as a community gathering point. The institutional depth of this coffee tradition is reflected in the City of Miami's declaration of 3:05 p.m. as the official coffee break time — known as the '3:05 Cafecito.'

The core dishes of Florida Cuban cuisine reflect a fusion of Spanish colonial, African, and Caribbean influences transplanted to Florida across two waves of migration. Ropa vieja (slow-braised shredded beef in tomato sauce), picadillo (seasoned ground beef with olives and raisins), moros y cristianos (black beans and white rice cooked together), lechón asado (slow-roasted pork marinated in mojo — a mixture of sour orange, garlic, and cumin), and croquetas (fried béchamel fritters filled with ham or chicken) are documented staples across Florida Cuban restaurants in both the Tampa Bay and South Florida regions.

The Cuban sandwich — the Cubano — is simultaneously the most documented and most contested dish in Florida Cuban culinary history. According to La Segunda Bakery's historical account, the sandwich derives from the Cuban sandwich mixto and was documented on Havana menus before appearing in Tampa restaurants. The Tampa-style Cubano is distinguished from the Miami version by the inclusion of Genoa salami — a direct contribution of Ybor City's Italian community — and by the use of Cuban bread baked with a palmetto leaf. Atlanta Magazine characterizes the Tampa sandwich as a product of the neighborhood's ethnic composition: Cuban pork, Spanish ham, Italian salami, and German-style pickle and mustard, pressed together in a loaf of Cuban bread. The Miami version omits the salami, reflecting the different ethnic composition of its post-1959 immigrant community. The dispute over which city holds the authentic origin has been formal enough to produce competing resolutions from the Tampa City Council and Hillsborough County, both asserting Tampa's claim.

Cuban culinary influence in Florida is concentrated along two primary corridors, each with distinct historical roots and signature characteristics.

In the Tampa Bay region, Ybor City — designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1974 — remains the geographic center of Tampa's Cuban food history. La Segunda Central Bakery and the Columbia Restaurant (established 1905) are both operating institutions with direct, documented continuity to the late 19th and early 20th century cigar-industry era. The Tampa-style Cuban sandwich, distinguished by the Genoa salami addition, is specific to this region and is not typical of Miami preparations. The palmetto-leaf baking tradition of Cuban bread is also specific to the Tampa lineage documented through La Segunda.

In South Florida, Cuban cuisine is most concentrated along the SW 8th Street / Calle Ocho corridor in Miami's Little Havana and extends through Miami-Dade County into Hialeah, West Kendall, and Westchester. EBSCO Research Starters notes that Little Havana has served as the cultural and political center of the Cuban community of the entire United States. The ventanita coffee-window tradition, developed institutionally in Miami beginning with Versailles in 1971 and documented as arriving with the first wave of Cuban immigrants in the 1960s, is a form of Cuban food culture specific to the Miami urban landscape. Key West also maintained documented trade and ferry connections with Cuba through the early 20th century, contributing to Cuban culinary presence there. Smaller Cuban-American communities exist in Orlando and Jacksonville, though the research brief notes these lack the historical depth and institutional density of Tampa and Miami.

In 2022, USF Tampa Library Florida Studies curator Andy Huse, USF Professor Bárbara Cruz, and Columbia Restaurant Group vice president of marketing Jeff Houck published The Cuban Sandwich: A History in Layers. The book drew on historical records to document that the sandwich appeared on Havana menus in the 1800s before arriving in Tampa — a finding that complicated the longstanding Tampa-versus-Miami origin debate. According to USF News, the sandwich had generated five to six research inquiries per year at the USF Tampa Library before the book's publication, reflecting sustained public interest in its documented history.

Cuban cuisine occupies a formal position in Florida's civic identity beyond scholarship. The Cuban sandwich has been the subject of competing resolutions by the Tampa City Council and Hillsborough County, each asserting Tampa's claim to the sandwich's American origin. In Miami, the City of Miami's declaration of 3:05 p.m. as the official 3:05 Cafecito coffee break — documented by Mayorga Coffee — reflects the degree to which Cuban coffee culture has been formally incorporated into the city's civic life. EBSCO Research Starters notes that Little Havana continues to play an important part in the political life of Miami, the state of Florida, and the United States broadly, and the neighborhood's food businesses — restaurants, bakeries, ventanitas — are documented as integral to that civic function. Institutions such as La Segunda Central Bakery and Versailles Restaurant operate simultaneously as commercial food enterprises and as living documentation of more than a century of Cuban immigration history in Florida.