Jazz Bistro on 4th turns Cuban dishes into a downtown Fairbanks event
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Fairbanks has plenty of places to eat, but Jazz Bistro on 4th has a vibe that extends past the plate and feels more like a night out. Chef Rico Zavaleta runs the show with a menu that plants a Cuban flag in downtown Alaska and then gets on with it. The signatures are direct and specific: bistec cubano marinated in lemon and garlic mojito sauce with onions, rice, and black beans; lechon asado cooked slowly and seasoned with the restaurant’s house sazon; and a run of creamy, spice-leaning seafood plates that feel built for winter.
The seafood choices are where Zavaleta especially shows off his skill. There is Alaskan halibut “Cuban style” in a creamy sauce, and salmon “Cuban style” with chard, mojito-garlic-lemon, vegetables, and the same saucy backbone. Steak shows up as a Cuban churrasco with chimichurri, which tells a lot about how this place operates: it cooks like a restaurant that expects adults to have dinner plans and then stay out.
The vibe is part supper club and part live-music room, which can be a mess in lesser hands. Here it reads as intention. Dinner feels like it is happening in real time, not on a laminated script.
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