Casa Alejandro is Alejandro's living room, built around Ecuadorian food and Spanish wine
Casa Alejandro is a Latin American and Spanish restaurant in Helsinki, and Alejandro, who runs it, doesn't really think of it as a restaurant. He calls it his living room.
Location
Mariankatu 13 B, 00170 Helsinki
Website
Known for
Ecuadorian ceviche, empanadas and Spanish wine
People become friends here
Come in on a slow Tuesday, order a coffee or a beer, and there's a good chance you end up talking to whoever's at the next table.
People become friends here. They ask how you're doing. It's a community.
Before this, there was a juice bar
Six years before our conversation, Alejandro was running Flamingo Juice Bar in Töölö, a place so small it barely had a kitchen. He slowly added empanadas and ceviche, making around 600 empanadas a week by hand for local markets, until he outgrew it.
He brought in a friend of twelve years, a chef with thirty years' experience, as a partner. Together, they applied for the space that's now Casa Alejandro.
Ceviche, chili con carne, and mostly Spanish wine
Lunch is ceviche, chili con carne, and empanadas, plus a few dishes that rotate through the month. Alejandro describes their ceviche as Ecuadorian in style. The fish sits overnight in lemon and salt, rather than getting the quicker cure he associates with Peruvian ceviche. It's what he tells every first-timer to order.
At night, the room turns into a wine bar with a dozen or so wines, almost all Spanish. The selection changes every few months. When we spoke, it included txakoli in rosé, white, and a red from near Bilbao.
Local art on the walls, on rotation
Casa Alejandro gives its walls to a different local artist every couple of months. It started when a neighbor asked if they could display their work there. Alejandro has kept saying yes, giving local artists a place to show their work.
The furniture is half secondhand Finnish pieces, half new and colorful. Alejandro and his business partner each wanted something different, and their architect suggested using both.
A name that reminds Alejandro of freedom
Ask Alejandro what he likes most about owning the place, and he doesn't take long to answer.
Freedom.
The company behind Casa Alejandro is called Te Quiero Libre Oy. For Alejandro, the name carries the thought "I want to be free, today." The Finnish company suffix Oy sounds like the Spanish word "hoy," meaning "today." He chose the name when he left a hospitality job that had him working sixteen-hour days without speaking Finnish. It has stayed with him ever since.
On Fiest since day one
Casa Alejandro has run on Fiest since it opened. Felipe, the restaurant's manager, handles the day-to-day himself, updating the menu and prices as they change. He says the system runs reliably day in and day out.
The guys really listen to us and the other customers, and they're very involved in the whole process. The product's intuitive, and it's customizable, which matters when your menu and prices are always changing.
Alejandro now leaves that side of the business to Felipe, who deals directly with Fiest's team whenever something comes up. The restaurant also uses Fiest to track inventory.
If you go with bigger companies, you end up talking to a call center, and you don't feel like you're getting the help you want. The experience as a customer has been great.
More from the shift
A closer look at the room, counter, and details behind the story.
Walk us through your shift
We'd love to see how your shift runs. Bring your menu, order types and payment methods, and we'll map how Fiest would handle a normal day before you switch.