At Casa SaltShaker in Buenos Aires, the restaurant door is "closed" but the kitchen opens wide

For any tourist who’s ever wished to get behind closed doors and see how the natives live, this trend’s for you: “Closed door” restaurants, or as they’re known in Buenos Aires where the trend is catching hold, “puertas cerradas.”

Here’s how it works: Make a reservation via the Internet at the home of a chef, who cooks dinner in his or her own kitchen and serves it right in the dining room. Also called the “underground dining scene,” such in-house restaurants are popping up everywhere from Barcelona and Berlin to London, New York and Chicago. (Click here for a more complete list with links.)

I knew this experience would be memorable the minute my friend John Deen shot over an email with the details: We’d have dinner Friday night at Casa SaltShaker, a “salon for food and conversation” in the private Recoleta neighborhood apartment in Buenos Aires of an ex-pat U.S. chef. Each person would pay 150 pesos, (about $40 U.S.) for a five-course meal complete with five paired wines and a welcome cocktail in the garden. Our job was to show up precisely at 8:45 and be prepared to make conversation with the other guests. Dan Perlman, a former restaurant chef, and roommate Henry Tapia would take care of everything else.

My husband Anders and I, along with our Minnesota friends John and Denise, were among the first to arrive. We were a bit nervous, wondering if we’d be conversing in Spanish and if the past month of language classes had taken root. Not to worry. The next entry was an Australian beginning a four-month trek through South America. She was followed by an employee of the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, her husband and her parents, who were visiting from Virginia. Next came a half-dozen other American tourists, (all devotees of the Lonely Planet guidebook series), representing both coasts and states in between. Our host Henry turned out to be the only native Spanish-speaker in the bunch.

Chef Dan welcomed everyone and then we got down to business – working our way through the two-and-a-half-hour meal organized around a global theme in celebration of World Food Day. You can get Dan’s entire menu with general descriptions of how to make each dish at www.CasaSaltShaker.com – or click here -- but to make your mouth water a bit, we started with Spiced Vegetables in an Egg Net paired with Chandon Rose Brut, and moved on to African Peanut Soup with a crisp white Alfred Roca Tocai 2008. This wins the “best soup I’ve eaten in a while” award, and I proceeded to beg Dan to actually write down the recipe with measurements. (“I just don’t cook that way,” he said.) But I succeeded (!) and you’ll find the peanut soup recipe at the end of this post.

Next we traversed to a sort of green plantain ravioli, called pansoti, with a roasted pumpkin-seed sauce, followed by what truly was the most flavorful roasted pork loin I’ve yet to eat. You know how pork loin is generally a bit chewy unless it’s braised into submission in a Crock Pot? The texture of this pork could compete with filet mignon. Time to demand an explanation, so I turned to John, who happens to be a pig veterinarian at the University of Minnesota and a pork connoisseur.

“It’s how the pigs are raised,” John explained. “They’re bred to have more fat. American markets just won’t tolerate that. And of course the flavor and texture is dictated by the amount of fat in the meat.”

Okay, so forget trying to make my pork back home taste like Dan’s. But I’m one American who’d be willing to trade a few calories for this roast every once in a while. Alas.

Even though Dan warned us to start pacing ourselves after Course Three, I barely had room left for the orange cheesecake I knew was coming for dessert. But when I heard Dan makes his own cream cheese from scratch, I soldiered on to the finale. Thankfully a “polenta cheesecake” isn’t nearly so rich as the traditional variety – a nifty twist indeed.

Many thanks to Dan and Henry at Casa ShaltShaker for a wonderful meal, an unforgettable experience and the following terrific recipe:

West African Peanut Soup

(Slightly adapted from a recipe by Dan Perlman, Chef, Casa SaltShaker, Buenos Aires, Argentina)

4 chicken thighs
2 tablespoons peanut oil, plus more for frying chicken skin
2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 one-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced
3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper flakes
2 1/2 quarts water*
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 cup roasted, unsalted peanuts, coarsely chopped
1 large yucca root, peeled and sliced
2 large tomatoes, cut in 3/4-inch chunks
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup coconut milk
1 bunch chopped fresh spinach leaves (about 2 cups)
Salt and black pepper, to taste

Remove the skin from the chicken, and reserving the skin, set it aside.

Heat the peanut oil in a skillet over high heat. Add carrots, celery, onion, garlic, ginger and cayenne and sauté until the vegetables just turn golden brown.

Meanwhile, in a large soup pot, bring water and vinegar to a boil. Add onion mixture and all remaining ingredients except the spinach. Reduce the heat to low, and keep soup at a simmer, partially covered, for approximately 1 hour, until the chicken is well cooked and tender. Stir now and again to make sure the peanut butter stays dissolved.

Meanwhile, cut chicken skin into thin strips and deep fry in an inch of oil, until crispy and browned. Set aside.

Remove chicken pieces from soup pot and set aside until cool enough to handle. Shred meat into soup, return soup to a simmer and add spinach. Cook 10 minutes more, then adjust seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into bowls, top with a few bits of crispy chicken skin and serve.

Serves 6 as a main course, 10 as a first course

*Dan uses the whey left over from making his own cream cheese but says the water-vinegar combo is a suitable sub.

For more information on Dan Perlman, Casa SaltShaker and "closed door" restaurants, visit www.casasaltshaker.com or click on the links in this blog post.