Versailles is a much hyped Cuban restaurant in Miami. It will appear on many “must” lists of the city. When we arrived, there was a huge line up, but it moved fairly quick and we were seated in a bout 15 minutes. Lets start with the setting. The inside is beautiful, like an old school Parisian cafe.
However, we wanted the first available, so we were seated outside.
The menu is huge.
With our server’s help, we settled on a couple dishes. The “El Criollo”, basically a sample of various Cuban dishes, some empanadas (beef, chicken, ham), and beef stew.
Here’s my take on the food. First, I went to Cuba about 5 years ago. I remember that restaurants were one of the few businesses a local could start. There was a wide range of types from high end to government run. As a result, the service varied dramatically from attentive to extremely, extremely, slow (guess who owned the really bad service places). I was impressed by the food at the higher end of the spectrum, but not particularly at the other end. There was a noticeable lack of fresh vegetables, and it was obvious a lot of places had to make do with what was available. Here is an example of one of the dishes from a higher end restaurant in Havana (it was in someone’s home).
Anyway, regarding Versailles, a couple of things were ok. Beans and rice, the stewed items and the empanadas were good. Everything else on my plate was disappointing, especially the fried pork chunks which were dry and basically inedible.
Overall, the service was ok, a bit slow but not overly, but the food was 50/50. I believe this place is overhyped and there are better places in Miami for good Cuban food. For example – Puerto Sagua and Sanguich.