Paradise On A Plate
2/6/2005 6:25:40 PM by By MARICALE E. PRESILLA
From the breezy veranda of the Boater's Grill on the southern tip of Key Biscayne, I can see the hulls of pleasure boats and the jade shadow of thick mangroves reflected in the calm waters of No Name Harbor. Perched on the mangroves' spidery roots, a huge, limegreen iguana basks in the sun, still as a sculpture.
Around me, families dig into hearty Cuban food while the ebullient owner, David González, makes his rounds, greeting customers as old friends. On my table, a stack of golden tostones and a Florida spiny lobster, open like a luscious fruit and glistening with drops of olive oil, await my fork.
It all seems so natural and timeless -- this beauty, this relaxed and friendly feeling, this familiar food. It is, in fact, the most recent fruit of an ongoing cycle of destruction and rebirth, both natural and man-made. It is also a manifestation of a Hispanic presence on Key Biscayne that began the day Ponce de León stepped ashore in search of water and claimed the barrier island for the Spanish crown nearly 500 years ago.
The story has special resonance for me because I have so many grateful memories of this marvelous place, officially the Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park but always El Farito (the affectionate diminutive of faro, lighthouse) to a generation of Cuban Americans.
When I arrived in Miami from Cuba in 1970, a deep forest of singing pines obscured the view of the Cape Florida lighthouse. Like thousands of other recent exiles, we took to El Farito with a vengeance, fighting summer weekend traffic with all but the kitchen sink in tow to cook complete Cuban meals under the pines. The forest brought me back to Siboney, a popular beach near my native Santiago de Cuba, and the 19th century lighthouse, the oldest standing structure in Dade County, gave me a reassuring sense of permanency.
In a yellowing picture, I can see my mother and her three sisters hiding from the rain beneath an inflatable boat, laughing like school girls, our leftover congrí (rice and red kidney beans) sitting on the picnic table. In another photo, my dad stirs a caldero (cauldron) filled to the brim with land crabs, perilously perched on one of the park's rusty grills. These were, without a doubt, my happiest days in Miami.
Unbeknown to us, our beloved El Farito owed its existence to another Cuban exile -- though creating a park was not what real estate mogul José Manuel Alemán, a former Cuban education minister, had in mind when he bought the 510-acre parcel for $1.5 million in 1948.
Plans were afoot for a causeway between Key Biscayne and the Florida Keys, and Alemán and his wife, Elena Santeiro García, envisioned an exclusive residential development on their property. The causeway failed to materialize and Alemán died. After a deal with private investors fell through, his widow bowed to public pressure and sold the land to the state.
The pine forest that so enchanted me was an unintended legacy of Santeiro García's misguided stewardship. In preparation for development, she had the property leveled, the vegetation killed and the ponds and swamps filled, leaving a virtual moonscape.
The casuarina, an invasive Australian pine, took over, holding sway until that harrowing day in August 1992 when Hurricane Andrew broke all hell loose over South Florida. Flattened by the storm, the willowy trees were ground into mulch and replaced by native trees and plants, creating a welcoming habitat for fauna from sea turtles to butterflies.
The reborn seaside park proved a natural, if unexpected, environment for David González, as well. He is a native of Guayos in Las Villas in Cuba's central farming region, where, he says, The closest I came to water was the river.
Watching him handle his staff and interact with his customers, you would think he is a veteran restaurateur. In fact, the soft-spoken 56-yearold had a career in retail in Costa Rica, where he emigrated from Cuba in 1962, and owned a discount store in Miami after moving here in 1973.
He had thought about opening a restaurant, and when the concession for the Lighthouse Café on the beach side of Cape Florida became available in 1995, he seized the opportunity. Almost immediately, he put his personal stamp on the menu.
In 1997, he and his wife, Reina González, sold their spacious Miami house and moved into a mobile home in the park. The Lighthouse Café remained their focus until January of last year, when it was destroyed by fire. (An illegal bonfire built by partying teenagers was the suspected cause.)
Until then, the Boater's Grill had catered primarily to the denizens of the No Name Harbor docks. In the year since the Gonzálezes began pouring their full energies into it, the rambling, Cracker-style structure has become a kind of Versailles by the sea -- a gathering place for Latin families, a magnet for celebrities including trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and TV host Don Francisco and a favorite destination for park manager Roberto Yero and his staff as well as Key Biscayne residents who walk and bike there at all hours of the day.
The attraction is obvious: The Boater's Grill is the rare South Florida restaurant that combines affordable, first-rate food with a priceless water view. Primarily a seafood place, it is also a Cuban restaurant in its broadest sense, serving meat and poultry dishes with the ubiquitous sides of rice and beans and luscious golden tostones made with soft, chubby Hawaiian plantains.
All sorts of specialties are available by advance order, from David's goat stew to a succulent, salt-crusted roast pig he makes in a double-decker outdoor oven.
On my first visit to the Boater's Grill, we started with an appetizer platter brimming with crisp morsels of fish marinated in a milk adobo, sautéed Spanish chorizos and fresh Florida Keys shrimp sizzling in garlic and olive oil. Aluscious Florida lobster followed, grilled in its shell and topped with shrimp enchilado, together with lobster chunks enchilado, perfectly fried fish and the requisite sides.
We lingered over coffee and dessert: a creamy, Cuban-style flan topped with rice pudding that the staff has dubbed matrimonio (marriage), and papaya cooked in syrup, the color of sunrise, paired with tangy queso blanco, a fresh cow's milk cheese.
David sat with us for a while, chatting. Astream of customers passed by, stopping to shake his hand, and he would invariably stand for the very Cuban male embrace with its characteristic pat on the back.
It doesn't take long to realize that the restaurant's warm, upbeat atmosphere begins with him.
In my family everyone was positivo, David says. Just open your mouth and ask, and I will find the way to make it happen. That's why I like my staff. If I tell them they have to move the restaurant, they will only ask me if they should push it or tow it.
His sense of wonder is equally infectious.
For someone born in the countryside, growing yuca and malanga, I have come a long way in my appreciation of the sea, he says. There is nothing more beautiful than dolphins coming to the harbor to catch mullet. They encircle the fish and jump up in the air as if they were staging a show at the Seaquarium. It's so amazing!
There is a fulfilling sense of coming full circle at the Boater's Grill. Deeply rooted in his Cubanness but with his heart also firmly attached to the fragile strip of land he now calls home, David González has created a most wonderful and Cuban of restaurants in a place that generations of Cuban Americans hold dear.