Julio Cabrera was named the Roku Industry Icon to rapture in the gathered crowd in San Miguel de Allende for the ceremony of North America’s 50 Best Bars 2023. The cantinero showman speaks to Emma Janzen about his journey from Castro’s Cuba to opening a bar that showcases his home nation’s identity through iconic cocktails on the global stage
Trace a line through the arc of Julio Cabrera’s impressive career and a clear picture emerges of a humble but highly accomplished and influential bartender who holds heritage close to the heart of everything he does. For more than three decades, Cabrera has persevered to follow his passion, first as a formally trained cantinero in Cuba during the late 1980s, then as a transplant bartender representing Cuba in Italy and Mexico, and yet again when he landed in Miami in the years leading up to the modern cocktail renaissance in the early aughts.
Cabrera helped usher Miami’s bar scene out of a time saturated with frozen Piña Coladas and Miami Vice cocktails and into an era of proper Mojitos and Hemingway Daiquiris, all the while while racking up a remarkable track record of bartending competition wins and notable consulting gigs at the same time. But his legacy also bears larger significance: as one of the world’s most ardent champions for cantinero culture, his quest to keep Cuban bartending traditions alive (and share them with anyone willing to listen) has left indelible marks on the international bartending community. For these reasons and more, the distinguished bartender was voted as this year’s Roku Industry Icon at North America’s 50 Best Bars 2023, sponsored by Perrier.
The calling of the stick
Born in Calimete, Matanzas de Cuba in 1964, Cabrera’s professional life started in the field as an agricultural engineer with a focus on coffee and citrus. “In Cuba, all the families want their child to study in university so they could be someone – my parents wanted me to be an engineer, or teacher, so I went to school and graduated,” he says. While he found the work interesting at first, it didn’t take long for him to realise it wasn’t the best personality match. “I was not a party guy, but my personality is very open and friendly. I like to be surrounded by good people, good music – those are things that make me feel like myself.”
Cabrera grew up hearing stories of his father’s bar told at family gatherings, a place Sr. Cabrera owned in the years leading up to Castro’s revolution when private businesses were forced to close. So in retrospect, he says, a pivot to the realm of hospitality was a natural move. “This was in 1989, a time when tourism was growing in Cuba. A few of my friends mentioned getting work in hospitality in hotels, so I joined the cantinero school, and since day one I fell in love with that. I said, I am going to give my 100% to be a good bartender.”
At first, Cabrera didn’t find support to carry on the family tradition of bartending. “They were so angry with me, because they fought too hard for me to become an engineer, it was shocking for them. They didn’t understand,” he explains. Once he started earning decent tips and helping out financially, they started to take it more seriously. “In 1991, the government sent me to Europe to study hotel management and they realised that it was a good decision. They told me a few years later, ‘now we understand this is the best decision you ever made.’”
Cabrera dropped a career as an agricultural engineer to enrol at a cantinero school, where he fell in love with bartending
Cabrera spent the next decade building a name for himself as an award-winning bartender, which led to a multi-year period abroad in Italy, followed by a move to Cancun, where he met future employers chef Michelle Bernstein and David Martinez. When the duo opened Michy’s in Miami, Cabrera moved his family to the United States to helm the bar there (which served only beer and wine at the time). Then, a few years later he took on the programme at Sra. Martinez, which was eventually named Best Bar in America by Esquire magazine. “During this time, I started doing my cocktails little by little, hoping someday to open my own cocktail bar,” he says.
Cabrera really came into his own after opening The Regent Cocktail Club in Miami in 2013, where he drew crowds from far and wide for his ‘Havana Nights’ series of music and classic Cuban cocktails; he led the bar to accolades both local and international; and he landed on the cover of GQ Magazine as the country’s ‘Most Imaginative Bartender’ – a first for the magazine.
To spread the gospel of cantinero culture further, he started taking promising bartenders on immersion trips down to Cuba. “I selected the best bartenders and rum connoisseurs and showed them classic Cuban bars and cocktails, cigars and music,” he says. The ripple effect within the US bar scene was almost immediate. “How many good Cuban bars opened in the United States after those trips? Everywhere: in Portland, New Orleans, Gainesville, New York. For me, it was amazing.”
After that, Cabrera teamed up with a number of large alcohol brands for a series of masterclasses on cantinero culture, which he travelled all over the world to teach. “I don’t teach just the culture but how to make Cuban cocktails in the way they should be done, like the Mojito, which everybody makes wrong, and the Daiquiri, and other classics,” he says. “Everybody is always impressed.”
A solo project
When the time came for Cabrera to open his own place, he imagined a bar that would hark back to the venues his family owned in Cuba, one that would uphold the tenets of cantinero culture – a mix of technique and knowledge, brought to life with showmanship and top-notch hospitality, he says. Café La Trova debuted in 2019.
After hosting cantinero masterclasses and working in bars across the world, Cabrera landed in Miami's Little Havana in 2019 to found his own bar, Café La Trova
At the bar, all of the bartenders follow the cantinero tenets Cabrera established. From the way they dress in formal uniforms – with long sleeve shirts, never rolled up, plus vests decorated with pins from significant international brands and bars, and following proper grooming protocols (close shaves and tight haircuts for the men) to the way they work with a style that balances elegant technique with engaging showmanship, every detail is a celebration. “The most important part is the show we make behind the bar, or outside the bar,” Cabrera explains. “We have a live band with musicians every night, but we make our own show behind the bar, playing real instruments. Nobody in the whole world does that the way we do it.”
Naturally, Café La Trova has already won its fair share of awards – including No.21 on The World’s 50 Best Bars list in 2022 and No.9 on the North America’s 50 Best Bars list for 2023 – but for Cabrera the biggest honour is how the bar represents his family history and Cuban heritage. “Wherever I go, people look at me as this person who came to this country and had to start from zero; being an immigrant from Latin America is hard, and I represent that,” he says.
When asked about how it feels to be acknowledged with the Roku Industry Icon award, he says it is a win for Miami cocktail culture and the bartending community at large, and that he feels especially proud of representing the Latino and immigrant communities within that context. “To be recognised personally and as one of the 50 Best, with our bar being located in Little Havana – a poor neighbourhood in Miami – for me, I am really proud about that. We are not in South Beach, or a five-star hotel. We are in Little Havana. This is for all the people who helped me, my family, and all the Latin and immigrant people who come to this country to follow their dreams.”
Miss the ceremony? Catch up on the highlights here:
North America’s 50 Best Bars 2023, sponsored by Perrier, was announced at a live awards ceremony in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, on Thursday 4th May 2023. Browse the website to browse the full ranking and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube to stay up to date with all the news and announcements.
