Anyone who’s spent some time in Florida understands how the Cuban sandwich sits atop the state’s food culture. It’s not just a hearty and delicious lunch — every bite is a taste of the Florida story. As the introduction to this new book explains, “Now at long last there is a chronicle worthy of this outsized sandwich and the people who create it, brought to you by three of the sandwich’s most obsessive fans.”

In this excerpt from the book, the authors tell the story of the historic Columbia restaurant’s reclamation of its fabled sandwich:

Richard Gonzmart,
The Columbia Restaurant (Tampa)

The food of our memories is powerful stuff. The flavors, the aromas, and the places where we consumed them combine to taunt our taste buds and haunt our daydreams. 

Fourth-generation restaurateur Richard Gonzmart knows this. When he assumed leadership at his family’s Columbia Restaurant, opened in 1905, the signature sandwich sold well, but he craved the version he remembered eating as a boy. Over the years, the sandwich just tasted . . . different. So in 2007, Gonzmart began a quest to remake the sandwich using the recipe his grandfather, Casimiro Hernandez Jr., served to customers in Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood. He had no idea how difficult and expensive it would be to recapture that taste of history. …

… Over the decades, the restaurant took shortcuts on ingredients and preparation in the interest of saving time and money. It was easier to let someone else marinate and slow-roast the pork. Deboning the hams before glazing required skillful labor. The ham bones might be used for the restaurant’s famous Spanish Bean Soup, but butchers cost money. 

“Those are the kind of mistakes people make, including us,” Gonzmart said. “You change what made you famous in favor of speed.” In a town full of Cuban sandwiches, the reputation of the Columbia’s version dimmed. In the mid-2000s, a Tampa food historian told Gonzmart the truth: Of the top ten Cubans in Tampa, the Columbia’s was not among them. 

“I wasn’t going to argue. He was right. We did use shortcuts. We used a different ham. We used a different pork. Everyone has a different thought about what the sandwich should be. I went to a recipe I found from my grandfather.”

Propelled by the revelation, Gonzmart set out to remake the sandwich top to bottom, which is crucial, since he considers the Cuban’s architecture vitally important to delivering maximum flavor and satisfaction. Make the sandwich incorrectly and he can tell within one bite. “I don’t have to take it apart to know it’s made wrong. I can taste the difference.” A diagram of the sandwich’s construction is posted in the kitchen for staff to use as a guide. …

… The end result is that after The Original Cuban Sandwich debuted on the Columbia’s menu in its reengineered version, sales for the item increased forty percent in the first six months. The Columbia Restaurant’s menu is replete with Spanish and Cuban classics, succulent meat and seafood. The “1905” Salad and premium sangria are both popular tableside preparations. The wine list showcases one of the largest private collections of Spanish wines in the world. Still, it is often the Cuban sandwich’s reputation that lures customers who might be unfamiliar with those aspects of the restaurant. It is the shiny object that attracts media attention when Super Bowls or conventions come to town. Food & Wine magazine in 2021 named the Columbia’s Cuban the Best Sandwich in Florida.

Gonzmart recognizes the sandwich’s power to lure customers. He tells the story of the day when three men came in wanting Cuban sandwiches for dinner. A longtime server who had their table was upset. “We shouldn’t serve them a Cuban sandwich; it’s not on the dinner menu,” he told Gonzmart. 

“I said, ‘Serve them the Cuban sandwich. You don’t know who these people are,’” he remembers. “About ten minutes later, he comes up to me and says, ‘They ordered a bottle of Dom Perignon!’ The guys had been on their yacht and they wanted a Cuban.”

As someone who cherishes the past, Gonzmart understands the passions the sandwich elicits. You start eating one as a child and you see your grandparents and great-grandparents eat it, he says. “Therefore, when you eat it, there are memories. When you eat a certain type of food, it helps you to think back to good memories. It makes it more enjoyable.” Remaking the sandwich was more than a quest to make a menu item more appealing. It was an effort at time travel, to preserve what the heart says is good and happy and warm. 

“These foods, to try and preserve them . . . in some cases, it’s going back to the way they did it before,” he said. “The Cuban sandwich, I feel that the sandwich we make is accurate to the early years. I really do.”

Excerpted from The Cuban Sandwich: A History in Layers, by Andrew Huse, Bárbara Cruz, and Jeff Houck. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, September 2022. Reprinted with permission of the University Press of Florida.