La Guarida,  Central Havana ,  Havana

Located on the top floor of a spectacularly dilapidated Havana tenement, La Guarida\'s lofty reputation rests on its movie-location setting ( Fresa y Chocolate was filmed in this building) and a clutch of swashbuckling newspaper reviews (including the New York Times and the Guardian ).

The food, as might be expected, is up there with Havana\'s best, shoehorning its captivating blend of Nueva Cocina Cubana into dishes such as sea bass in a coconut reduction, chicken with honey and lemon sauce, papaya lasagna with chopped shellfish, tuna fish with sugarcane glazed in coconut, watermelon gazpacho with shrimps, delicious pork medallions dipped in mango sauce or rabbit in olive oil and rosemary.

La Guarida has hosted all kinds of boldface names, from Queen Sofia of Spain, Steven Spielberg, Jack Nicholson, Uma Thurman, Fito Paez and Naomi Campbell to Pedro Almodovar, Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanes. The list is way too long to fit in these pages, so taking a look at the pictures hanging on the walls is a much better idea.