Conran & Partners brands Floridita

Conran & Partners is to create branding and interiors for Conran Restaurants’ latest venture, Cuban eatery and bar concept Floridita, plus cigar café La Casa del Habano, which will open in London in the autumn.

Founded in Havana in the late 19th century, Floridita was one of the world’s most famous bars in the 1940s and 1950s.

Its mix of cocktails, cigars and music attracted an eclectic crowd, with Ernest Hemingway, Errol Flynn, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Al Capone all regulars at the venue.

Conran Restaurants’ chief executive Des Gunewardena explains that the forthcoming London venue ‘will be a blend of the classic Cuban bar and a vibrant, contemporary restaurant’.

The Havana Floridita features a circular dining room, English Regency décor, friezes and ‘colonnades of bottles’.

A Conran Restaurants spokeswoman says ‘elements of the original’ will be reinterpreted in the London site and the venue will be recognisably connected to its Havana namesake.

Property negotiations are continuing for a ‘prominent central London location’ for the restaurant, with an announcement expected to be made ‘in the next few weeks’, the spokeswoman adds.

Conran & Partners declined to comment on its brief or plans for the restaurant.