A Cuban Bakery in Tampa That Believes in Butter

The bakery, which opened in April on Nebraska Avenue between a tire shop and a botanica, has no sign. It has, instead, a small chalkboard in the window, on which the day's offerings are listed in Spanish and, in slightly smaller handwriting, in English. On the morning I visited, the offerings were: pan cubano, pastelitos de guayaba, and, at the bottom, in what I took to be a note of warning, mantequilla real (butter, real).

The proprietor, a man named Alberto Fuentes, will not, under any circumstances, use lard. He is aware that this is, in the eyes of a certain Tampa purist, a heresy. He is also aware — and eager to explain — that his grandmother, who was born in Camagüey in 1919, did not use lard either. 'She used butter,' he told me, 'because butter is what she had. Everyone else used lard because lard is what they had. The recipe is the recipe. The fat is the argument.'

The pastelito, when it arrived, was the size of my hand and the color of a good tan. It was so buttery that it left a fingerprint on the paper. I ate it in three bites, standing at the counter, and then ordered another. Alberto, at the register, nodded once, as if he had been expecting this outcome all along.