paladar

What it means

1. 1.

   A privately run restaurant, originally one operating out of the owner's home. The word is now used of every private restaurant in Cuba, including large and expensive ones.

2. 2.

   Still occasionally used narrowly, by older speakers, for the small front-room operation with a handful of tables.

Literally: Palate.

Examples with translations

• Comimos en un paladar de Centro Habana, buenísimo.

  We ate at a private restaurant in Centro Habana, it was excellent.

• Abrieron un paladar en la casa de la esquina.

  They've opened a restaurant in the house on the corner.

Where it comes from

From the Brazilian telenovela Vale Tudo, broadcast in Cuba around 1990, in which a character builds up a chain of sandwich shops called Paladar. The soap was a national obsession, and when home restaurants were legalised in 1993 the name was already waiting. One of the best-documented television borrowings in any language.

First attested: early 1990s