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While the food is top-notch, it's the sophisticated but fun atmosphere that sets Victor's apart from the typical Cuban coffee shop-restaurant. It's a breezy tropical space run smoothly by suave waiters with semiformal demeanors and pencil mustaches, who politely warn you when you've ordered too much food. That's easy to do where everything sounds so seductively delicious. Like the house specialty, lechon asado: delectable roast suckling pig marinated in fresh lime juice and garlic. Well-made minty mojitos contribute to the mellow, tropical-vacation ambience, which is exaggerated in the adjacent room, the Cuba Lounge (dark-burgundy upholstery, a portrait of a scowling Roberto Duran), which feels like a cross between a Havana bordello and a place where Hemingway might have enjoyed suffering through a bout of writer's block. — Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld

Ropa vieja, $26; Florida red snapper, $36