MIAMI
Review: Los Félix Marries Mexican Tradition with Miami Cool—and Now the Food’s as Good as the Mission
Photos by Eric Barton
★★★★★
3413 Main Hwy | Website | Instagram
By Eric Barton | April 9, 2025
The first time I went to Los Félix in Coconut Grove, I wanted to love it. I really did.
The place had everything you’re supposed to admire: corn grown by Mexican farmers paid living wages, nixtamalization done in-house, a soundtrack you’ll be plugging into your Spotify as you sip a an old-fashioned down with brown-butter cognac and kombu and pretend that counts as hydration. And yet I left thinking, neat idea—someone let me know when the food gets good.
That’s happened since my first visit. I returned recently, not to give them another chance, but because I couldn’t stop thinking about the sheer ambition of it all.
So I ordered like someone with something to prove: the yuca flatbread slicked with roasted corn butter, the mushroom dish that smells like it moonlights in a smokehouse, a short rib tamal with mole as dense and dark as a good secret. One by one, every dish from chef Sebastian Vargas made a convincing argument that the dishes here are now as good as the concept is ambitious.
Take the pork cheek carnitas. This is their signature for a reason: citrus-braised meat topped with edible flowers, sunflower sprouts, and a riot of herbs, folded into tortillas made from corn they grind daily. It was precise and decadent and—here’s the kicker—actually fun to eat. I didn’t taste the effort. I tasted the joy.
Or the al pastor taco: marinated pork butt, fermented berries, and, when paired with mixable combos of the three salsas served on the side, just enough heat to make you pause mid-bite and check that the table water isn’t empty (it never is here). It’s complex but not complicated, the kind of thing that sticks with you longer than you think a taco should.
Even the crab arepa (photo up top), which sounds like something you order because you’re tired of pork, turned out to be a sleeper hit—flint corn grilled until smoky, topped with crab so sweet and fresh it didn’t need anything beyond the whisper of charred plantain leaf underneath. And the yuca flatbread with roasted corn butter? I’d like to spend every day from here on in beginning my morning with one of these.
Los Félix hasn’t just leaned into its ethics. It’s married those ideals to food that finally lives up to them. There’s something deeply satisfying about a restaurant that tells you, essentially, we’re going to do this the hard way—and you’re going to like it.
And this time, I did. I liked it a lot.
Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who splits his time between Asheville and Miami. He’s on a constant hunt for the best pizza, best places to bike, and for his next new favorite destination. Email him here.
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