Across Buenos Aires, behind nondescript front doors and in family living rooms, a host of homespun restaurants are the latest foodie fad. The tricky bit is finding them – and I fall at the first hurdle.
Almacen Secreto, or the Secret Store (+54 11 4854 9131), is – as its name suggests – virtually impossible to locate. Admittedly, I've forgotten to write down the street number, but it's also because it's on an unremarkable road in the residential Villa Crespo neighbourhood. I stride straight past. It's easily done. The anodyne corrugated door, framed by two lonely pot plants and some graffiti, is a stone's throw from a tatty antiques warehouse and railway line.
This is just one of a growing number of puertas cerradas, or closed-door restaurants, springing up across Buenos Aires. "Before, it was all about being seen," says Almacen Secreto founder Maria Morales, "Everyone wanted flashy restaurants with floor-to-ceiling windows onto the street. Now it seems people want something more intimate, much more personal."
And that's exactly what she provides. Almacen Secreto offers a shaded courtyard and simple dining room with so few tables that guests mingle naturally. At lunch I find myself next to some circus school students. Maria's menu divides the country into three regions and I opt for a tender braised Patagonian lamb with rosemary and roast potatoes. Like the food, earthenware crockery, and artwork lining the walls and gallery, the wine is home grown, from small bodegas whose "wines you won't find in any supermarket."
"You hear about these restaurants by word of mouth," says the circus school teacher Hernan Carbon. "A friend sent me an email about this place, and I've been coming ever since."
Fortunately, from their highly secretive beginnings, increasing popularity has earned the closed-door restaurants mentions in Time Out Buenos Aires and other guides, and most hotels can now help too – so you need neither local contacts nor advanced Spanish to seek them out. Alternatively, an internet search for "puertas cerradas Buenos Aires" brings up blogs and Facebook fan clubs.
Or you could sign up for a tour like the one I took with Macu Morales Bustamante, owner of AntiTour (tours costs $30-$90 depending on group size). She's not one to be seen waving a brolly, herding flocks of punters past Evita's tomb. Instead, she shows me a side of the city I always thought existed but never knew how to access.
Through an easily-missable entrance on traffic-choked Avenida de Mayo, Macu shows me a dusty book shop stacked with ancient tomes. From law books to leather-bound French literature, it's fantastically eclectic and I leave with several 1930s guidebooks and an anthology of Spanish poetry to make me look erudite.
From spectacular city-wide views to meeting local designers, we spend the day gauging the city's pulse before relaxing in the rose gardens of Palermo with a traditional Argentine tea, or mate, a pungent herbal brew. The highlight of my tour though, comes in the early evening.
It's easy to be sucked into often soulless tourist tango shows. But Macu takes me to a bandstand in a suburban park. There, once a week, melancholy classics are pumped from ageing speakers and everyone from old couples to young romantics dance in the warm evening air. This is real tango – best followed by real home cooking.
Macu used to waitress in her mother's own closed-door suburban restaurant; it's now shut but she knows plenty of alternatives and recommends supper at another cryptic address, the home of travelling chef Diego Felix.
Buenos Aires born, 35-year-old Diego is a vegetarian on the move. We're lucky to catch him at home. "Casa Felix (+54 11 4555 1882) is not a place," he says. "It's wherever we happen to be." This summer has seen him and his photojournalist wife on a trans-America cooking tour. But now they're back home, feeding a dozen guests twice a week. It's an intimate setting, in the living room and patio of his classic Buenos Aires "chorizo" house – so called for its sausage shape, curving around an interior courtyard. Diego likes cooking at home, where he makes the most of his neat backyard garden with wild herbs from across Argentina including varieties like burrito – little donkey.
These underpin an ever-changing menu. "I decide on it as I travel to the market on my moped." Such spontaneity pays off and we're treated to five courses from a delicate nut and Peruvian black mint soup to sea bass marinated in deep red Bolivian achiote seasoning. It costs just £17.
While Diego is a licensed caterer many closed-door restaurants operate under the radar, serving local wines – permit or no permit. Step forward Cocina Sunae. Christina Sunae is a New Yorker of Korean origin offering south-east Asian food. "The puertas cerradas go hand-in-hand with an Argentine tendency for artisanship," she explains. "People love the fact they are little secrets with a limited number of guests." Maybe that's why her living room's full every week. The sofa is pushed aside, family photos overlook the diners and there's a conviviality and multilingual chatter never found in conventional restaurants.
"I never stop talking about food," says Juan, a bearded and bespectacled American-Argentine. We eat Filipino spring rolls and fish in sweet and spicy Thai sauce. True to his word Juan doesn't shut up. But his enthusiasm is infectious. After piles of food and Argentine wines, we part with friendly backslaps and promises to return.
And I will. I'm already investigating my next puerta cerrada, a tip off from Juan called Mis Raices (+54 11 4784 5100), meaning My Roots, where septuagenarian Juanita cooks up traditional Jewish dishes served with tales of her family history. Now all I need do is find the place…
• I-escape.com has a range of stylish guesthouses and hotels in the city from under US$100 per room. Flights to Buenos Aires are available on kayak.co.uk from £505 with Tam from March 2010.
