When Los Félix in Miami debuted in the heart of Coconut Grove in 2021, there really wasn’t anything like it. Chef Sebastian Vargas was excited to showcase Meso-American cooking with a focus on corn and sustainability in the kitchen.
Four years on, Miamians can’t get enough. The restaurant earned a MICHELIN Star in 2022 and has held on to one ever since. MICHELIN also awarded Los Félix a Green Star for sustainability, and it’s thrilling to see Vargas get creative at his restaurant.
No matter what though, corn is part of every dish—a way for Vargas to honor an ingredient central to the history of the Americas. You might find it in smoked trumpet mushrooms with potato and truffle or as part of grilled crab arepas. And you’ll get something different each time you return as the menu changes seasonally.
Read on to see how centering corn made Los Félix in Miami a must visit. Then book your seat on OpenTable.
What do you think Los Félix’s X factor is?
Sebastian Vargas: I think the fact that we’re a restaurant focused on corn. We aim to tell the world through our dishes about our indigenous ancestors that valued and saw this ingredient as the mother ingredient of their diet and culture. Every dish at Los Félix has corn in it one way or another.
What’s the one dish you’ll never remove from the menu?
Our al pastor. Our adobo is what really makes our al pastor special. It’s an adobo that we’ve been feeding for four years now. We never allow it to finish, and we always feed it like a sourdough bread mother. So every time you come into Los Félix, [it] is the same one, with great flavor, just getting better and better. It’s served as tacos with our housemade corn tortillas.
What’s the underdog of the menu?
When we opened, we had guacamole and totopos on the menu, but we kept being called a Mexican restaurant. I’m not Mexican, and I’ve never worked in a Mexican restaurant. Though we use a lot of Mexican influences, I didn’t want to be known for that. We replaced the guacamole with this incredible duck dip that eats like a guacamole, but doesn’t taste anything like it. It’s made with caramelized onions, egg yolk emulsion, and pepitas, and served with totopos made with heirloom corn tortillas that are fried in grass-fed beef tallow. Don’t worry, we still have guacamole at brunch for those who miss it.
What is a hidden gem among the drinks?
We make a corn arepa at brunch. We use the water we cook the corn in to make a matcha corn drink that is just delicious. You can taste the corn in that water. Then we use a good matcha and sweeten it with a little sugarcane. It’s an incredible matcha drink, but I really don’t think people have caught onto it yet.
Who’s your longest regular?
Pat and Harold. They were the first people to ever sit in our restaurant on opening day. They still come two or three times a month. They’re the cutest little old couple that lives here in Coconut Grove. They always come as soon as we open at 5:30 pm and order two or three dishes to share. When we opened, we had $40 bottles of wine. Of course we’ve grown out of that and upped our prices. But to this day, there’s a tab in our POS [point of sales] system that says ‘Harold and Pat Wine.’ They still get their $40 bottle of wine. And every time they come, they bring an extra large bucket of M&Ms for the whole team. We have stacks of M&Ms in our office because nobody can eat them as fast as they bring them to us.
Who’s your longest serving staff member?
Dime. She started as a server, and now she’s an assistant manager. She’s done everything, from service to bar, every position available. She’s been with us for three years now. One of the most beautiful things to see in a restaurant is the growth of individuals throughout the year and how they just continue to surprise us with their knowledge. It’s a true testament to how we’re doing things, how we operate, and how we’re always looking to open up that door of opportunities for those that are in sync with our vision and our dreams.
What’s the most memorable experience you’ve had with a customer?
We had a woman come in after almost losing her life to Covid. She had to have lung surgery and it was a really long recovery process. She wasn’t able to go out to eat for a couple years because she couldn’t trust the food to be safe for her post surgery. She came into Los Félix and ate her way through the whole menu and cried the entire time. [She] wrote me the most beautiful note on a card explaining her situation. She felt like she was coming back to life because she was able to taste and eat really tasty food, knowing that was not going to affect her in a bad way. That became a huge reassurance of the importance in always choosing what’s right for our bodies. At Los Félix, that starts with where we source our products and how we cook them.
What’s the best seat in the house?
We have both indoor and outdoor seating. Our façade is all glass, so I like the table that’s inside but closest to the glass in front. It gives you a view of the beautiful rush of Coconut Grove at night and people walking by and dancing when they hear a good song. Or you’ll catch that moment where they notice we have a MICHELIN Star. But from here, you also have a view of the bar and the entire restaurant. It’s really a golden spot because you get to see it all.
When is the best time to find a reservation?
The best time to find a reservation is as soon as we open. Around 5:30 or 6 pm, almost every single day, when the sun comes down, and it’s nice and vibrant, there’s a rainbow that goes through the glass and shines all over our bar. It’s so special to me.
What’s your favorite award you’ve won?
Our MICHELIN Green Star. I think it’s the star of the present and the future of our industry. Once the Green Star is seen to hold the same value as other awards like 50Best or a regular MICHELIN Star, I think we will all be more in alignment with sourcing and what’s best for ourselves and our customers. Making sustainability more accessible for everyone would be truly so cool.
Amber Love Bond is a Miami-based food + beverage writer typically somewhere delicious with her laptop in tow and a cocktail in hand. See what she’s sipping and follow her adventures on Instagram.
