Paladar, Chicago Restaurant, Brings Old World Cuba To Logan Square (VIDEO)

Forty-five different rums?!

Indeed. When it comes to the sugarcane-derived Latin liquor, Jose Gonzalez, owner of Paladar Restaurant & Rum Bar in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood, isn't messing around. His eatery's rums, when combined with fresh ingredients like cucumber and guava, make for some killer cocktails. And the Havana-style grub and the restaurant's "homey" feel have been getting plenty of thumbs up as well.

Gonzalez recently spoke with Chat Chow TV about his eatery's "old world Cuba" feel, which he said was inspired by nostalgia. He opened the restaurant at 2115 N. Milwaukee Ave., the former site of an El Cid taco eatery, last spring. (Watch the interview above.)

"What I was going for is what’s happening in Cuba right now," Gonzalez told Chat Chow. "People are taking their homes and converting it into restaurants. They’re making their dining rooms into restaurants and they’re called ‘paladares.’ That’s what I was trying to do here. I brought that warmth, feeling, that passion that I saw growing up with my parents cooking."