American actor Jeffrey Vincent Parise caught Cuba’s figurehead “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel and partner Lis Cuesta enjoying one of Rome’s top fine dining restaurants this week, outraging Cubans who have faced frequent, severe food shortages at home for decades.
Parise, widely known for his role in the television series Supernatural, happened to be eating in the restaurant with fellow actor Jensen Ackles and others at the time of Díaz-Canel’s departure.
“We just had dinner with the President of Cuba,” Parise said in a now-deleted Instagram story post after he recorded Díaz-Canel leaving, joking that the dictator was a “big fan” of Supernatural. Posts made on Instagram’s story feature are automatically set to expire after 24 hours.
Parise’s “dinner” with Díaz-Canel reportedly caused a backlash against the Supernatural actor and his colleagues as some online users believed that the senior Cuban Communist Party official had, in fact, dined with them and was a fan of the show. The actor posted a clarification explaining the joke and assuring concerned viewers that he did not, in fact, share a dinner with the communist figurehead president.
“Everyone is getting upset because we had dinner with the ‘president’ of Cuba,” Parise said. “Calm down. We weren’t dining with him, actually, we just happened to be in the same restaurant.”
Parise explained that, in reality, he only managed to capture Díaz-Canel from afar.
“It was just a joke, I mean, he was there, I don’t even know if he’s a fan of Supernatural,” he concluded.
Reports placed Díaz-Canel and Cuesta leaving the Pierluigi restaurant located in Rome escorted by their security. The luxury restaurant is known to have been visited in the past by heads of state and politicians such as former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, as well as Hollywood actors and celebrities such as Tom Cruise. Parise had reportedly made a similar joke regarding Cruise’s presence there prior to the Díaz-Canel post.
Circle of life…… hopefully we will meet again in #piazzadericci #presidentbiden #pierluigirestaurant #rome
Posted by Ristorante Pierluigi on Wednesday, January 20, 2021
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited the restaurant at some point in the past, as evidenced by a photo the restaurant published on its Facebook account in 2021.
The Miami-based América TeVe channel reported on Thursday that the average meal at the restaurant hovers at around $100 per client. For comparison, Cuba’s monthly minimum wage is 2,100 Cuban Pesos ($87.50) as of February.
The video prompted a wave of condemnation from Cubans living in Cuba and in exile.
“They are having a great time on the tour … Díaz-Canel and Lis Cuesta captured in a luxurious restaurant in Rome,” Cuban activist Magdiel Jorge Castro posted on his Twitter on Wednesday. “In Cuba they make people eat moringa and to resist with creativity!”
Since the 1960s, the communist Castro regime has heavily rationed food for Cuban citizens through a ration card system that determines what few supplies a Cuban citizen can purchase and when. Cuban citizens have reported that the continued food shortage situation has worsened since December and, as a result, Cuban citizens have found even greater difficulties in obtaining even the most basic food items.
Díaz-Canel concluded a European tour this week that saw him visit Italy, Serbia, and France, seeking aid and investment to sustain the communist regime. Díaz-Canel’s European tour also saw him visit the Vatican on Tuesday, meeting with Pope Francis.
Actor Jeffrey Vincent Parise arrives at the 40th Anniversary of the Soap Opera Digest at The Argyle on February 24, 2016, in Hollywood, California. (Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images)
Cuban exiles in Rome peacefully protested his presence outside the Vatican on Tuesday morning as Díaz-Canel and Pope Francis’s meeting was underway, chanting, “down with the dictatorship,” “Díaz-Canel murderer,” and calling for an end of the communist Castro regime and its over six decades of rule in Cuba.
Díaz-Canel’s European trip was reportedly sponsored in some capacity by the Venezuelan socialist regime, as the figurehead president used an airplane from the Venezuelan state-owned Conviasa airline for his trip. Conviasa was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2020 during the administration of former President Donald Trump. Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin explained at the time that the Maduro regime relies on the airline to “shuttle corrupt regime officials around the world to fuel support for its ant-democratic efforts.”
Díaz-Canel’s visit to the expensive Pierluigi restaurant in Rome heavily contrasts with his “Creative Resistance” narrative concept, which the figurehead president has been employing since 2022 to ask Cuban citizens for greater sacrifices amidst Cuba’s inhumane conditions, crumbling infrastructure, rolling blackouts, and widespread shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and other supplies.
Partaking in international fine-dining experiences while its citizens continue to suffer is a common practice among socialist and/or communist dictators and their families.
In 2018, Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores visited Turkish chef Nusret “Salt Bae” Gökçe’s expensive Nusr-Et Steakhouse in Istanbul just as the Venezuelan economy collapsed, causing mass starvation and hunger. Venezuelan exiles living in Miami protested outside Gökçe’s Miami restaurant shortly afterward.
“Salt Bae,” whose real name is Nusret Gökçe,” posted videos showing him carving meat in front of Nicolas Maduro. (Twitter/@nusr_ett)
Gökçe, who owns several restaurants around the world, quietly closed down his New York burger joint this week.
In a similar case, Mariela Castro, daughter of former dictator Raúl Castro, was spotted in November 2018 enjoying lobster alongside Spanish singer Pastora Soler and Spanish transgender lawmaker Carla Antonelli from the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). The backlash prompted Soler to cancel a concert in Miami that she had scheduled for December 2018.
In May, members of the Cuban communist musical group Buena Fe, which has deep ties to the Castro regime, were confronted by Cuban exiles living in Barcelona as they patronized a “capitalist” Burger King restaurant shortly before they were scheduled to participate in an anti-capitalism event.
Sayde Chaling Chong, president of the Ibero-American and European Alliance against Communism (AIECC) organization, told Radio Televisión Martí that he asked the communist musicians why, “if they’re so anti-capitalists, they are going to eat at a Burger King, which is the ultimate example of capitalism.”
“He [one of the musicians] told me he didn’t care,” Chaling Chong added.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.