There’s No Place Like Home: Casa Felix
Trend spotting! Buenos Aires is abuzz with exclusive underground restaurants known as puertas cerredas. Literally meaning “closed-door”, these restaurants are small and usually in chef’s private homes, open only several nights a week. We think of them as anti-restaurants. Because while most eateries go out of their way to make their presence known, these tiny hot spots fiercely protect their secrecy, which ironically makes them so intriguing to BA’s trend setters. One of our favorites is Casa Felix, a cash-only pescatarian hideout, located in Chef Diego Felix’s home in the Palermo neighborhood. (Can you imagine, a seafood only restaurant in this country of monstrous beef eaters?!)
Chef Felix is all about slow food and creating new dishes inspired by indigenous ingredients and herbs, many of 
which are grown right in his private urban garden. His doors are open only three nights to 15 people with reservations. This allows the chef to have complete creative control and give his guests a unique dining experience. And if you’re lucky enough to snag a spot, for $150 pesos (about $37 American dollars) each diner enjoys a stellar five course pre-fixe meal in Casa Felix’s chilled out courtyard where colorful flags hang over head and leafy green murals decorate the walls. Now that’s an address worth finding.
Curious? To learn more, watch Caitlin Zaino uncover Casa Felix in The Urban Grocer on the Cooking Channel throughout October.
[...] there to film The Urban Grocer television special, I had the incredible opportunity to dine at Casa Felix: a buzzed-about closed-door restaurant run by pescatarian chef Diego Felix out of his home. Though [...]
I’ve done my phonetic best with the three indigenous herbs chef Felix used and mentioned in this episode but my only luck was “paico” for which I found an extract used as an herbal remedy. The other two, suico, souico, barrito, borrito, burrito? Help! Even though they aren’t growing in the US, it would be great to read flavor descriptions to see how close we can get. BTw, I am officially obsessed with those pink mushrooms!
You’ve done pretty well!! The herbs in Chef Felix’s garden were paico — as you’ve already sorted out — burrito, cedron, and suico. Burrito is a minty sort of herb and cedron is lemon verbena. The name for suico changes by region, which makes it more of a challenge to find in a simple google search as it’s more often referred to as its Spanish name, anisillo. It’s a sort of cilantro that’s indigenous to South America and it’s so good! As for those pink mushrooms, though they’re mostly grown in tropical regions, they’re not as easy to find as you’d think. Plus, they’re gorgeous and delicious
Thanks so much for watching, hope this helps!
[...] foods, giving his loyal followers a new and exciting sampling of his culinary skills.As with any Felix menu, ceviche is a must. His Peruvian causas with white fish ceviche and fresh apricots, in particular, [...]
[...] The Urban Grocer: “Chef Felix is all about slow food and creating new dishes inspired by indigenous ingredients and herbs, many of which are grown right in his private urban garden.” [...]