When Los Félix launches in Coconut Grove next month, it will not only be one of Miami’s newest restaurants, but the eatery will also rely on traditional food sourcing to cultivate its menu. Los Felix will use conventional Mexican cooking methods to craft traditional Mexican fare using heirloom corn and Milpa farming techniques.
“Milpa farming is one of the few sociocultural connections we still have to the ancient indigenous farmers that came before us,” says Chef Sebastián Vargas, who has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants, including Osteria Francescana, Eleven Madison Park and Fäviken Magasinet. “The making of Milpa is awakening to the sacred connection between self and land, between community and the interconnected realms of existence. It is reverent hands in soil and looking skyward for guidance. It is honest earthwork and a cosmic portal to our infinite nature through the honoring of corn, chiles, cacao and squash. Milpa is living wisdom.”
The traditional neighborhood Mexican-style eatery concept is being led by restaurateurs Josh Hackler, Pili Restrepo and Chef Vargas (pictured), who created Grassfed Culture Hospitality in 2020 to enrich the communities they serve. The previously launched Krüs Kitchen, an artisanal food and wine market, in November of 2020. The new concept at 3413 Main Highway in Miami focuses on creating warm hospitality for patrons with a passion for gastronomy.
With corn as the foundation for Los Felix’s menu, the restaurant plans to blend traditional Mexican culture with a unique flavor to produce a modern Mexican-styled eatery with ancestral roots. Menu items will include homemade Mexican tacos and quesadillas, hand-crafted on the restaurant’s molino – a traditional Mexican tortilla mill – tamales, aguas frescas and a mix of seasonal dishes paired with natural wines and craft beers. A weekly Vinyl DJ music program in addition to an analog sound system every Friday and Saturday and a late-night menu will help give the crowd a contemporary ambiance mixed with well-tested cultural practices.
“We are modern Mexican cuisine rooted in indigenous heritage. With the name Los Félix, we nod to the grandmothers who carried the fire of ancestral wisdom, the mothers who preserved ceremony, and the female trailblazers who embodied the fierce and the tender, by way of iconic muse Maria Felix,” Restrepo says, the creative director of Grassfed Culture Hospitality.
