Martino’s Cuban Restaurant

The food here is enough to seduce, but the chef-owner’s joie de vivre will hook you for life.

By: Antoinette Buckley

   Martino’s Restaurant sits quietly on a corner that marks the end of restaurant row in Somerville. Although in its original incarnation more than 10 years ago, Martino’s was another Italian restaurant, those privileged to have discovered it since know the full-bodied food and warm service that is Cuban.
   The food is made up of ingredients Americans have embraced in recent years; avocado, cilantro, black beans and chorizo sausage speckle dishes and intensify flavor. Other ingredients common to Latin American cooking may be puzzling to newcomers looking over the menu for the first time.
   Yuca, looking like an elongated sweet potato but with white flesh, is a potato reborn to those unfamiliar with it. The plantain, a staple in the Cuban diet, is a most versatile banana-like fruit. At different stages of ripeness, it yields completely different results. When the peel is green to yellow, it tastes like a starchy vegetable, akin to the potato, and makes for great comfort food. When the peel is yellow to black, a sweet, soft fruit, similar to a banana, lies underneath. A plantain at any stage is always cooked before eaten and in the Cuban style it is most often fried.
   So exactly what is Cuban food? Is it more Mexican or Spanish? It resembles both, but is neither. It has an identity of its own that, like most cuisines, evolves from a variety of multinational culinary influences, owing much to slaves from Africa and neighboring Caribbean cultures.
   Martino Linares, founder of the restaurant, immigrated to America from Cuba around 1950. Over the course of his restaurant career, he has cooked in French and Italian restaurants and brings both elements to his own kitchen at Martino’s Restaurant. Mr. Linares prides himself on serving pre-Castro Cuban cuisine. It recalls a time from his past when Cuba was a paradise, food was abundant, and it was the island of choice for American vacations. Mr. Linares’ politically affected life has been an interesting one to say the least. And although he has put some harrowing experiences behind him, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, he cannot erase the history, which gives the gracious and grateful man of today an infectious love for life.
   Martino and his wife, Aura, share life in the kitchen. Martino makes all the sauces in the morning and does most of the day’s prep work. Then Aura takes over and cooks everything to order while Martino works the crowd. He walks around the room, looking like a Cuban Einstein, with foamy white hair and flowing mustache, waiting on and entertaining tables. He might mesmerize your 2-year-old by drawing two love birds on a piece of paper again and again or dance to Latin music with the little girl at the neighboring table. His exuberance energizes the room.
   Part of the experience at this family-friendly, modestly priced restaurant is recognizing it as a family-run business. Four out of the five Linares brothers work at the restaurant. When the staff has such a personal attachment and vested interest in the success of the restaurant, it translates favorably to the customer. Like father, like son, our young Linares server enthusiastically gave us a tour of the menu, pointing out his favorites as he went along. The 8-year-old at my table wisely noted, "That guy makes everything sound and taste good." Indeed he did.
   Appetizers are invigorating. The avocado salad ($6.95), done Ronaldo-style (Ronaldo is one of the Linares sons), is fabulous. It includes a medley of greens, avocado wedges, tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro and plantain chips in an oil-and-vinegar dressing that incorporates a citrus. That’s all I can ascertain about the dressing as Martino is hushed when is comes to divulging ingredients. But if he holds back on recipes, his portions are generous and staff charm runneth over.
   Grilled chorizo with tostones ($9.95) is easy to like and, fittingly, one of the most popular appetizers. Slices of chorizo sausage are paired with tostones (plantains that are flattened and then fried) and mixed with grilled onions. The tostones become addictive: the initial crunch is the first attraction, followed by the starchy yet buttery interior that reels you in and sends you back for more. The Cuban sampler for two ($6.95) offers meat pies made with ham, roasted pork, potatoes, onion and green pepper that are finely minced, wrapped in a tortilla and then fried. The meat pies are paired up with ham croquettes that omit the potatoes usually associated with croquettes. Instead, finely minced ham is mixed with a combination of white sauces, breaded and fried. A spicy tomato sauce accompanies. Less than healthy, but more than good, both are engaging, little cylinder-shaped foods.
   Entrées in general have a familiarity to them that is normally associated with home-style cooking. They are usually served with black beans, rice and sometimes a treat of fried, sweet plantain at the peak of ripeness, with a glistening, caramelized coat. Steak (about ‰-inch thick) with fried onions ($11.95) is just that and relatively unimpressive, but was just the thing for the child at the table who looks for more than chicken fingers, but isn’t ready for chicken with a mole sauce ($12.95). Incidentally, Martino’s mole sauce is something special. It is unlike the rich, more intense Mexican version. Instead it moves gracefully on the plate with just a quick zap of heat. It is a demi-glaze/white sauce/tomato sauce combination that incorporates cooked apples, sweet plantains, zucchini and jalapeño peppers.
   Roast pork Cuban-style ($11.95) is a customer favorite, although our server boasted more about the deep-fried Havana-style pork chunks ($11.95) that we did not sample. The roasted pork version came as big chunks of what really looked like the "other white meat." The fork-tender meat, lacking in enthusiasm, braised in a tangy garlic sauce incorporating translucent ribbons of onion and benefited from well-seasoned sides of beans and rice.
   Dessert is limited to two homemade choices. The Cuban signature cake is the three leche cake ($3) that uses three milks in the making: evaporated milk, condensed milk, half-and-half, and then a heavy cream topper. Seems like four milks to me. Putting aside technicalities, the texture of the cake is surprisingly dense. It has a deep vanilla flavor and is sweet enough to inspire pleasure without overdosing in decadence. A tight flan ($3) is a very acceptable version. Perhaps the best finisher of all is the Cuban coffee made with frothed milk.
   Martino’s Restaurant has gotten some good press in its 11 years and yet still manages to stay a well-kept secret, at least beyond the boundaries of Somerville. But beware — one visit to Martino’s and you’re hooked.