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New Hemmingway-themed menus debut at Havana Beach

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Special to 30A Food & Wine
March 23, 2023

ROSEMARY BEACH – Havana Beach Bar & Grill’s new brunch and dinner menus are an ode to Hemingway’s Havana, celebrating the joy of living, eating and drinking well. The new menus debut this spring and draw inspiration from Ernest Hemingway’s favorite oldtown Havana haunt, El Floridita, after which the Havana Bar & Grill itself was modeled.

Much like Hemingway himself, the culinary team at Havana Beach Bar & Grill believe that dining should delight all of the senses. Equal parts Gulf Coast and Caribbean, with French-inspired techniques, our new menus feature cuisine as locally sourced as possible.

Consider each bite a story, each course a new chapter to dive into, and each visit a journey. ¡Salud!

The new menu’s section names take inspiration from Hemingway’s most famous works. Traditional breakfast selections are found on the menu under the headline “The Sun Also Rises,” sharable appetizers are under the title “A Moveable Feast,” “Green Hills” indicates the salad section, and “For Whom the Bread Tolls” are the handheld burgers and sandwiches. On the dinner menu, “Old Man & the Sea” indicates the seafood section, while the “Hemingway on Hunting” section includes the chicken, pork and steak entrees.

Highlighted brunch menu items include new offerings like the Stuffed Torrejas, made with vanilla-cinnamon custard brioche bread, guava cream cheese, fried plantain, caramelized pecan, and warm dulce de leche; the Carnivore Omelet is made with three eggs, Black Forest ham, bacon, Cochon andouille sausage, peppers, onions and pepperjack cheddar cheese. Sharable favorites will include the Mojo Pork Empanadas and Hot Grouper Bites, while the Pollo Frito Cubano sandwich is made with fried chicken breast cutlet, jalapeno, cucumber-jicama slaw, Swiss cheese and mojo aioli, served on a toasted Cuban roll.

Highlighted dinner menu items include appetizers like the Mojo Pork Empanadas and Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes, Havana Ceviche Atún (key lime-coconut marinated tuna, with red onion, mango, sweet and hot peppers, fresh herbs, toasted coconut and fried plantain), and Oysters de Antigua (coconut-tamarind, jerk spice roasted oysters). Seafood entrees offered under “The Old Man & the Sea” include Grouper de Santiago (blackened grouper served with Carolina gold rice, sofrito black beans, fried okra, fried green tomato, and pickled corn relish), while the “Hemmingway on Hunting” section of the menu offers highlights such as Isla Chicken (made with mango-jerk BBQ sauce and served with pickled prickly pear), or the classic Center Cut Beef Tenderloin.

Havana Beach Bar & Grill is located in The Pearl Hotel, 63 Main Street, Rosemary Beach.

HB_Food on Veranda-web

Havana Beach Bar & Grill: Pride and passion make great food

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By Lauren Sage Reinlie
March 21, 2021

ROSEMARY BEACH – Todd Rogers, executive chef of Havana Beach Bar & Grill, had worked in five-star resorts and restaurants all across the country when he packed up his family and moved to South Walton over six years ago.

It wasn’t hard for him to leave behind the bustle of big cities.

“I always say you should work where you love to live,” the 60-year-old Rogers said recently. “The 30A area is just such a beautiful place, it’s so unique. All the beaches and quaint little towns. I have lived in big cities like Atlanta and Houston, but really I prefer this.”

The attraction of a place with a small-town feel likely comes from Rogers’ formative years, growing up on a small farm in West Virginia, farming and gardening and above all cooking alongside his grandmother. They gathered fruits and vegetables for jams and jellies. They baked biscuits and gravy, collected eggs from the chicken coop.

“It took all day, but you didn’t have phones and televisions and everything that took all your time,” Rogers recalled. “You made food, you lived to eat.”

When he was 16 a chef at a nearby country club took him under his wing. He went to college and studied business at his dad’s request, but shortly after he was accepted to the Culinary Institute of America in New York City. He was the first of his family to move away from home — to one of the biggest cities in the country, no less.

“It was a little bit of a culture shock,” Rogers recalled.

His cooking journey has taken him all across the U.S., but the passion his grandmother helped stoke at such a young age has never waned.

Havana Beach Bar & Grill
A delivery truck from New Orleans stops at small family-run farms in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, collecting fresh ingredients.

He brought it to Havana Beach where they cook, as he says, the “old-fashioned” way. Everything is made by hand.

Sauces begin with roasting bones and caramelizing vegetables.

“People say, ‘Why would you spend three days making demi-glace?’ Because it’s how you should do it.”
– Todd Rogers, executive chef

“There are just so many things you can buy this day and age so people say, ‘Why would you spend three days making demi-glace?’ Because it’s how you should do it,” Rogers said. “It’s not just a TV show where you make four courses in 30 minutes. It takes a lot of care and pride and passion to create great food.”

It also takes consistency, a strive for perfection and a tight-knit staff who share the same the values.

Rogers and his staff practice and perfect all their recipes from the shrimp and grits or Delmonico filet mignon to their expertly crafted avocado BLT.

Rogers enjoys teaching new cooks, sharing classical cooking techniques and tips he’s learned along the way.

“A lot of the older chefs kind of hold their recipes and techniques close to their chests,” Rogers said. “I believe in the other way: teaching everyone around you what you know and helping the young people who want to move up and learn something new.”

Gulf Shrimp Fritters
The Gulf Shrimp Fritters are loaded with Gulf shrimp, corn, black beans, jalapeño, pepperjack cheese, and served with avocado-lime aioli.

The farm-to-table food Rogers grew up with is also present at Havana Beach.

Almost everything Rogers serves comes from along the Gulf Coast: oysters, shrimp, grouper, snapper and flounder from Apalachicola Bay and the Gulf of Mexico; organic chickens from Bonifay, Florida; peppery, farm-fresh arugula, micro-radishes, micro-sorrel and other micro greens from a hydroponic farm about an hour north of the restaurant.

A truck from New Orleans stops at small family-run farms in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida along the way.

“It’s kind of like a market on a truck coming right to your back door,” he said.

Havana Beach Bar & Grill features a main dining area, a veranda with outdoor seating, a roof deck patio with views of the Gulf and a large, hand-carved mahogany bar with one of the largest bottle collections in South Walton.

Rogers says he doesn’t plan to stop working anytime soon.

“I always like to say I’m self-employed. I just find someone to pay me to do what I love.”

Havana Beach Bar & Grill is located at The Pearl Hotel, 63 Main Street in Rosemary Beach. The restaurant is open daily from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. for breakfast and lunch, and 5 to 9 p.m. for dinner. The bar is open from 9 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Call 850-588-2882 for more information.

Havana Beach fish

Havana Beach Bar and Grill: Passport to Havana

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April 4, 2020
By Liesel Schmidt

ROSEMARY BEACH – When it comes to creating a successful restaurant, it takes more than just a great concept or an interesting hook. It takes an understanding of the market, a keen sense of business, and – of course – a master to lead and direct the kitchen.

The Pearl Hotel’s Havana Beach Bar and Grill could not have assembled a more fitting team when they chose Executive Chef Todd Rogers to take on that role, pairing him with The Pearl’s Food & Beverage Director Kevin Dixon to bring the flavors of Cuba to the plate. After all, for a restaurant whose concept centers around the cuisine of such a passionate culture, it requires the skill of someone with an equally matched passion for cooking. The menu of food and drinks offer enough complexity and flavor to make every bite and sip an experience to remember.

Havana Beach fritters
Havana Beach Bar & Grill is a AAA 4-Diamond Restaurant and Florida Trend Golden Spoon Award winner.

Havana Beach’s menu is, in fact, a little taste of the Old Town Havana so beloved by Ernest Hemingway, blended with the local flavors of the Emerald Coast. Food is prepared with the precision and dedication of the most skilled cigar roller, plated and presented with pride and passion. Fittingly enough, the dining room has the look and feel of a cigar room, blended with an airiness that could only come from being so very close to the sea. Here, you’ll find the perfect place to relax in the warm glow of its intimate spaces, a place where food and drink are savored like a slow sunset as a cigar burns down to the stub. To merely say that this is a restaurant would be to discredit it, to disrespect all that is offered when a dish is prepared by the hands of a chef as impassioned as Chef Rogers.

“We want our dining experience to entice all of the senses, from the very first moment our guests are greeted and have that carry through in each and every course they enjoy.”

– Executive Chef Todd Rogers

“We want our dining experience to entice all of the senses, from the very first moment our guests are greeted and have that carry through in each and every course they enjoy,” said Rogers, whose 30 years as a chef have allowed him to explore the world through its food. And at Havana Beach, the diner has the very great honor of being his guest on a trip to Cuba, without ever having to leave their table.

Not surprisingly, favorites include Coastal Seafood Fritters and Local Caught Grouper as well as some of their newest Latin-inspired creations such as the Three Little Pigs pork sampler and Hemingway’s Mariscos – a mouth-watering array of local fish and seafood served with spicy chorizo and zucchini. Perfect for anyone looking for something on the lighter side is the Havana Beach Salad, though Rogers insists that their decadent desserts are not to be missed.

Havana Beach s'mores
Havana Beach s’mores

“Our pastry chef is fabulous, so we have been able to extend our pastry and fresh bread offerings,” he said.

“We’re passionate about what we do and want to create an experience that exceeds everyone’s expectations,” Rogers continued. “To do that, we make the majority of all our menu items in-house or work closely with local and regional purveyors to ensure that we get the freshest, most locally sourced ingredients possible, and that shines through in the quality and flavor of the dishes we present. It’s a special experience to have a Gulf-front restaurant that’s truly serving a taste of place beyond just seafood, and we’re very proud of that.”

So, too, are they proud of their beverage program, offering creative, seasonally inspired, handcrafted cocktails that engage all of the senses in addition to a curated wine and beer selection that pairs perfectly with the cuisine.

In as much as each spice and sauce flavors the food at Havana Beach Bar & Grill, so does it reveal talent and pride and quality, taking the diner on an adventure and leaving them looking forward to their next trip back.

Havana Beach Bar and Grill is located in The Pearl Hotel, 63 Main Street, Rosemary Beach. Open daily for breakfast from 8 to 11 a.m.; lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Open daily for dinner 5 to 10 p.m. Bar hours run 9 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. with a daily happy hour from 3 to 6 p.m. Reservations not accepted. For more information, visit www.thepearlrb.com or call 850-588-2882.

AlysEntrance

3 for 30a Easter Weekend

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By Natalie Haddock

FRIDAY, April 3rd – Who says you can only have a fabulous brunch on Sundays? This Friday beat the weekend crowds and get over to the Havana Beach Bar and Grill located at the Pearl in charming Rosemary Beach. Here gulf coast cuisine meets with old world Spanish, Portuguese, and French influences. Breakfast options include southern style eggs with biscuits and bacon as well as a tasty Revoltillo De Chorizo with sunny side eggs, sofrito, chorizo rice, black beans, and corn tortillas. Favorites include Ceviche Style Salmon and the Rope Vieja. The real treat might be their Bloody Mary Bar where guests can choose their own liquor, mixes, and compliments like okra, celery stalks, cayenne pepper, garlic salt, and more. Brunch is open from 8:00 AM until 3:00. To view the full menu visit http://www.thepearlrb.com/dining/havana-beach-en.html

Enjoy Brunch at the Havana Beach Bar and Grill located inside the Pearl Hotel in Rosemary Beach.
Enjoy Brunch at the Havana Beach Bar and Grill located inside the Pearl Hotel in Rosemary Beach.

SATURDAY, April 4th – Looking for something different to do with the family this Saturday? Hop on down to Alys Beach for an Alice in Wonderland themed tea party at Fonville Press from10:00 AM until noon. 150 hats are available for the kids to decorate as they meet and mingle with the story’s White Rabbit and Mad Hatter. The Fonville Press will be offering their standard fare including wraps and sandwiches, packaged ready to grab and go, as well as decadent pastries, parfaits, coffee, smoothies, and frappes. Mimosas and Bloody Mary’s are also available for the adults. A suggested donation of $5.00 will be accepted to benefit the Seaside REP. Please call 850-213-5500 or visit http://www.alysbeach.com/events/ for more information.

SUNDAY, April 5th – Watercolor is in full bloom this Sunday with an “eggciting” Easter Brunch at the beautiful Lakehouse venue followed by family festivities at Marina Park. Brunch begins with eggs and omelets made to order, Applewood smoked bacon, country sausage links, crispy French toast, fresh fruit, or a hot baked scone. In addition to mouthwatering entrees like Teriyaki Glazed Pork Tenderloin and Cajun Pan Seared Snapper, there is also a plethora of options among the Salad Station, the Seafood Station, and the Carving Station. Chocolate truffles, berry cobbler, and carrot cake are just a few of the decadent desserts available and the kids will enjoy their very own buffet with assorted sandwiches, vegetables, chicken tenders, and of course macaroni and cheese. Celebrations continue until 2:00 PM at Marina Park with an egg hunt, seasonal games, and photo opportunities with the Easter Bunny. There is free admission to the park but for brunch reservations call 850-534-5050 and see the full menu by visiting the Fish Out of Water Restaurant tab here http://www.watercolorresort.com/florida-gulf-coast/restaurant.asp and click more menus.