Cuba: Havana - Part 1

The classic American cars and crumbling colonial buildings of Cuba’s sultry capital are now being joined by a host of world-class five-stars hotels, boutique villas and tantalising restaurants.

Havana’s hot moment in the fashion sun- along with the filming of Fast& Furious 8, the first American blockbuster to be one in the way the outside world viewed Cuba and vice-versa.

Yet in the travel terms, the real change has been the arrival in June of the Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Havana in Havana. The first true five-star luxury hotel to have opened in Cuba since 1959, this 246 room-and-suite grande dame marks a glistening return to the world-class standards on an island that has only been edging in that direction in the past five to 10 years. The six restaurants and foxy, high-ceilinged guest rooms aside, the most obvious place to enjoy this high-spec Havana is at the rooftop pool with its incredible street views.

The 10,764sq ft European-style spa has floor-to-ceiling views so you can gaze over the ruined beauty of old Havana’s sun, rain-and time –ravaged streetscape from a lavish cabana. And the hotel’s European vibe- to be expected from the Swiss hotel impresarios at Kempinski i in historically apposite, the hotel is situated in the renovated Manzana de Gomez building, built between 1894 and 1917 as Cuba’s first European style shopping arcade. Back then, it offered a day out for the aspirational pre-revolutionary elite. The hotels' new shopping arcade now represents an aspirational day out for the post-revolutionary elite and includes brands I’m sure haven’t been seen before in Cuba – from Mango and Michael Kors to Versace, L’Occitane and Montblanc.

Across the park is the Hotel Inglaterra, built in 1844 and due to reopen after renovation on New Year’s Eve 2019 as part of the Starwood Luxury collection. This is the first North American hotel group to have made it past ruling Castros since 1959. The Cubans were never going to let the Americans get their paws on the prized Manzana de Gomez project, particularly as recent US policy has tightened travel rules for Americans to the country and dealings with Cuban firms controlled by the island’s military, whose company Gaviota owns the Kempinski.

It was Gaviota that set its sight on the 1897-founded Swiss hotel brand, not the other way around, without any other company getting a look in. It’s a fact that Xavier Destribats, Kempinski urbane and amusing Chief operating officer for the Americas, vaguely concedes to me over lobster ceviche, a Cohiba in his hand, in the hotel’s top-floor San Cristobal restaurant. he has quite a job on his hand and he is doing with a aplomb.

Continued part 2