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Jeff fusco
Best cellar: Tinto’s
design will evoke a rustic
Spanish wine cave.
CHEF’S SPECIAL
By Kate Kilpatrick
Upstairs, he says, there’ll be an
elegant, modern dining room with
a more sophisticated and creative
menu.
“Mexico City, gourmet-style,” he
calls it.
When Garces opened Amada in
Old City in October 2005, there
wasn’t much by way of competition.
“He really kick-started the tapas
scene here,” says his friend Marc Vetri, the chef/owner behind Vetri, the
intimate Center City joint that Bon
Appétit called “possibly the best Italian restaurant in America.” (Vetri’s
second endeavor Osteria opened on
North Broad Street last month.)
“[Garces] is just one of those restaurateurs who understands what
the city needs,” says Vetri. “I was
talking about opening up a tapas
restaurant here four or five years
ago. I went to Spain a couple times
and was really into it. But I never
did. A couple years later he did
it—and he nailed it.”
Amada was immediately recognized as one of the city’s best
restaurants.
Celebrity chef Douglas Rodriguez,
Garces’ mentor, calls Amada “the
best tapas bar in America.”
Food insiders were familiar
with Garces’ talent from his years
working as executive chef of the
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The driver agrees to be their
guide.
“If I’m not back in two hours,”
he says, passing his car keys to the
parking attendant, “call my wife
and tell her they got me.”
At the market Garces snaps photo
after photo of ceramic dishware,
kitschy vinyl tablecloths, lucha libre
masks and Santeria charms. “Smells
like our hotel room,” he says as they
wind through the live animal section
of the market—packed with puppies,
ostriches, snakes and chickens.
He calmly takes it all in, trying to
boil the sights, sounds and smells
down to an essence indigenous
to Mexico City that he can then
transport to the new restaurant
he’ll soon be opening back home in
Philadelphia called Chilango—an
expression layered with connotations of class pretensions that refer
to people from Mexico City.
Chi-lan-go.
Garces likes to stretch out the syllables when he says it, smiling each
time it rolls off his tongue.
In his new restaurant the downstairs taqueria/cantina will be festive and casual with an industrial
tortilla press and grill churning
out warm tortillas, a walk-up taco
window for sidewalk orders, a freshfruit margarita bar and live entertainment—possibly mariachis.
23
MEXICO CITY—Jose Garces
clears his palate and soaks in the
cultural chaos. Sporting a tan
guayabera shirt and black Chanel
sunglasses, his thick black brows
helping to shade his eyes from the
late-morning rays, he reviews his
stops for the day, which include
markets, taquerias and cantinas.
Garces hops in the front seat of
a 1986 Cutlass Supreme. His sous
chef Tim Spinner and designer
Jun Aizaki pile into the back. The
three men are on a treasure hunt
for inspiration—searching for the
authentic accents and finishes they
need to make their project shine.
First up on the itinerary: La
Merced.
The driver raises his eyebrows.
That market, he says, is infested
with chineros—thieves who wander
the stalls and surrounding streets,
robbing and assaulting anyone they
can catch off-guard. (The name
comes from a Chinese headlock
maneuver the thieves use to disable
their victims.)
But the promise of greasy huaraches, pitchers of agua de jamaica,
fresh huitlacoche (a corn fungus
popular in Mexican cooking) and
barrels of dried chili peppers, mole
sauces and candy-colored sugars
within the market’s maze prove
irresistible.
and wrestling.
His best friend Joe Erlemann, who
now owns a sailing company in Chicago,
remembers his buddy’s struggle.
“He had to be 170 pounds, and it just
killed him to do that—because he’s a
butter guy. When he was making food,
he always made it very rich,” Erlemann
recalls. “So he loved wrestling, but he
hated it because he loved food so much.”
(For Garces, the answer was football.
He could eat all he wanted and the
coach loved him for it.)
But it wasn’t just about eating. Garces
loved preparing meals too. Garces and
Erlemann worked together as lifeguards
at Chicago’s Foster Beach while working toward their associate’s degrees at
Harper College. In the summer their
friends would chip in for barbecues.
“When other guys were cooking,
they’d throw chicken legs with nothing
on them on the grill, and it was bland,”
says Erlemann. “If it was Jose’s turn, it
was marinated flank steak and tortillas.
We’d have killer steak tacos, and everyone would want to be around.”
It was always Latin food, and it was
always good. “That was all his mom,”
says Erlemann. “I don’t think he had a
cookbook.”
Born to Ecuadorian immigrant par-
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T h i s p h oto : J e f f f u s c o/ P h oto s o n r i g h t: K at e K i l pat r i c k
Stephen Starr-operated hip faves Alma
de Cuba and El Vez. But they were less familiar with his entrepreneurial acumen,
and never would’ve suspected that just
a year and a half after opening his first
restaurant he’d be positioned as the city’s
next great restaurant mogul.
Garces’ second restaurant Tinto, a
wine/tapas bar focusing on the Basque
region of Spain, is set to open this week
at 20th and Sansom, across from Capogiro. Then comes Chilango—the aforementioned taqueria/restaurant inspired
by the food and flavors of Mexico City.
Chilango will occupy a bi-level space
in the Hub, a brand-new postmodern,
earth-toned high-rise at 40th and
Chestnut streets in University City. On
the heels of Chilango, he’ll be opening
a steakhouse in his Chicago hometown,
followed by the release of his first cookbook Latin Evolution next year.
“This is pretty insane for me right
now,” Garces says of his hectic schedule.
“In terms of talent, there are a lot of
great chefs in Philly in all different cuisines. In terms of ambition as an entre-
A boy named sous: Tim Spinner
will help run the kitchen at
Chilango; Jun Aizaki (top), Garces
and Spinner tour the markets
of Mexico City in search of
inspiration.
preneur, that’s a smaller group—that’s
what sets Garces apart,” says Philadelphia magazine food editor April White,
who’s writing Garces’ cookbook.
“Jose has an incredible sense of what
people really want to eat combined with
a sense of what’s new,” says Food and
Wine editor Dana Cowin, who recently
visited Amada.
Her assessment of Amada: “I loved it.
I loved that the food’s comforting and
clever. I loved that the potato cake, the
tortilla Española, is served with a little
white mortar with saffron aioli and a
little pestle. I love the casks of sangria
on the walls. I love the hanging hams. I
love that he has flamenco.”
Cowin suspects Garces will someday command a restaurant empire. “I
wouldn’t necessarily have gotten that
from looking at his menu, or from the
food we tested, but in talking with him
it’s completely clear,” she says. “He has
his heart in the right place and his eye
on the long-term. He’s a planner. Barring
unforeseen circumstances, he’ll have a
series of great restaurants because he
has a great palate. And because he genuinely cares. I mean he really cares.”
Garces stays obsessively abreast of culinary trends, devouring food and industry magazines and responding to market
demands. He’s a savvy businessman and
a visionary—think Stephen Starr—but
he’s also a chef who puts his heart into
both his food and his employees.
“It’s different if you grew up working in
the business,” says Garces. “I have a personal connection with the employees in
the kitchen, and the waitstaff as well. I’ve
been in the trenches. I’ve worked in busy
restaurants. I know the ins and outs of
the lifestyle and what it’s like to be just a
regular worker, like a busboy—it’s hard.”
“Jose is a really interesting middle
ground between a Stephen Starr—who’s
vast—and the mom-and-pop BYOB,”
says Food and Wine’s Cowin. “And that’s
a sweet spot for Philadelphia.”
Garces says he never planned on being
a chef, but he fell in love with food early
on. As a high school athlete he had to
choose between his two passions: food
ents, Garces grew up the middle child
in a middle-class family in Chicago.
His mother Magdelena, with whom he
remains close, got him interested in
cooking by the time he was 8. “I remember her coming home from work and
preparing a full family meal for my dad,
my two brothers and me. I’d assist her in
the kitchen, and that’s really when food
inspired me.”
Garces learned how to prepare traditional Latin dishes like arepas (fried
corn pancakes), empanadas (vegetable,
meat or cheese-stuffed pastries) and
moté (boiled corn with meat and spices).
“She instilled many values in me, especially in the kitchen. She’s a perfectionist
when it comes to flavor and technique.”
After trudging through two years of
business courses, Garces decided cooking
was his passion and enrolled in Chicago’s
Kendall College culinary school.
“He disappeared after that,” says
Erlemann. “He was just so into it. He’d
found his calling.”
After graduation and an internship in
Texas, Garces landed a job cooking at
La Taberna del Alabardero in Marbella,
Spain—where the seeds of his love for
Spanish cooking were planted.
Not long after his return, he moved
to New York and got a job at Douglas
Rodriguez’s Chicama restaurant. Rodriguez introduced him to Nuevo Latino
food, a school of cooking he’s credited
with creating.
“There’s not a lot of cooking technique
in Latin America. You put everything in
a pot, and when it’s overcooked it’s ready,”
says Rodriguez, explaining his culinary
invention. Nuevo Latino cooking applies
classical training and modern techniques
to traditional Latin ingredients or dishes.
“Jose started off as a cook,” says Rodriguez. “Within two weeks I recognized he
had a lot of talent. He had a lot of skills:
people skills, cooking skills, a great at-
titude. He was willing and wanting
to learn anything new.”
Garces, in turn, credits much of
his success to Rodriguez, who took
him under his wing. “He was a huge
mentor,” he says. “His knowledge
of food and flavors is outstanding.
And he opened my eyes to the possibilities available to chefs.”
When Stephen Starr hired Rodriguez as executive chef of Alma de
Cuba in 2001, Rodriguez brought
Garces along for the ride. After the
restaurant’s opening, Rodriguez became the absentee chef, and Garces
the acting chef. (It was at Alma
that Garces met his Cuban wife
Beatriz, a dentist who worked there
briefly as a server.) El Vez opened in
2003, and Garces ran both kitchens
simultaneously.
“He’s a one-in-a-million talent,”
Rodriguez says of his protege.
“Some chefs can cook. Some chefs
are more administrative. But a chef
who can do all of it and run a busi-
ness and run people and develop
people is a very rare thing. He has a
lot of talents I don’t even have. I’m
not good with numbers—my other
side of the brain doesn’t work. Both
sides of his brain work well.”
Garces put in five years working
for the Starr Restaurant Organization before deciding he needed to
open a place of his own. The question was where: Miami, Chicago or
Philly.
By that point he and Beatriz had
a daughter Olivia, now 4. (Their
son Andres is 2 months old.) They
decided on Philly.
“I really like the dining market
[here],” says Garces, who eventually
bought a house in Queen Village.
“That cheesesteak mentality can be
the downside, but mostly I see the
food and dining scene progressing.”
He says customers are starting to
appreciate exotic flavors and ethnic
foods more. “It’s a market that’s
really waking up. It’s still kind of
fresh, and there’s room to create
some paths.”
The dining market, as the reservation book at Amada will prove,
likes him back. Even the real estate
market is a fan.
The developers behind the Hub
wooed Garces into his lease agreement for Chilango. They think he
can create a destination restaurant
that’ll attract Center City diners
and regular Amada customers to
West Philly.
“We want to associate the building with lifestyle, which we equate
with salons and spas, fashion retail,
restaurants,” says Ahsan Nasratullah, a developer at the Hub. “When
we started to think about restaurants, we thought, ‘Who’d be the
best to bring in? Who’s at the top
of the market right now?’ Garces is
definitely top of the market.”
The avocado ravioli arrives at the
table.
Beginner’s Guide
to Basque Cuisine
into, which opens March 16, is a rustic tapas/wine bar inspired
T
by the flavors of the Basque region of northern Spain. Basque
cuisine combines fish and seafood from the coastal area with the
cured meats, freshwater fish, and vegetables and legumes found
further inland.
bacalao al pil-pil: traditional dish of salted cod served in a white
sauce.
Donostia: epicenter of the Basque region’s haute cuisine
movement.
Euskura: language of the Basque people.
gâteau Basque: a cake filled with pastry creme and cherries.
nueva cocina vasca: Basque’s haute cuisine, inspired by French
nouvelle cuisine; lighter, less rustic interpretations of traditional
Basque dishes.
pintxos: the Basque equivalent of tapas.
sagardoa: Basque cider, or “apple wine.”
txokoli: a traditional semisparkling white wine.
txikiteo: customary wine/tapas crawl through the region. (K.K.)
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ossau-iraty: a semisoft sheep’s milk cheese.
marmitako: traditional fisherman’s stew of tuna and vegetables.
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idiazabal: a hard, smoky cow’s milk cheese.
A tour of Mexico City’s top
gourmet restaurants has led Garces
and Spinner to lunch at Pujol, one
of the finest and most elegant restaurants in the wealthy neighborhood of Polanco.
“It’s modern Mexican with a
twist,” explains Garces. “Very
creative and very similar to what I
want to do.”
The menu is particularly exciting
since previous restaurant tastings
proved disappointing, with an
abundance of dishes Garces rated
merely “amateur.”
Both men pause to soak in the
presentation. Garces takes a
picture. Spinner sketches in his
notebook. They lift their forks and
dissect the contents.
“What do you think of this?”
Garces asks Spinner.
“I like it.”
“You think we could do something
like this?”
“You know we can.”
“Okay, what do you think that
filling is?”
From there Garces encourages
Spinner to train his palate and
decipher each element of the dish:
the finely brunoised shrimp filling;
the bright orange guajillo sauce on
top; the smooth, creamy texture,
followed by a sharp seafood flavor
and a hot chili finish.
Using the tips of their forks they
take tiny, sparing bites from plate
after gluttonous plate, savoring the
flavor of each taste and breaking
down its contents.
Garces enjoys the exercise.
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“Something that really excites me
is when we get young, ambitious
cooks who show promise. That’s
something I take pride in. I enjoy
working with them,” he says.
“A lot of chefs are assholes. They’re
totally demeaning. They usually
have an inferiority complex,” says
Adam DeLosso, chef de cuisine at
Moshulu, who’s been friends with
Garces since they met 10 years ago
in the kitchen of New York’s Four
Seasons. “[Garces] is the complete
opposite. The best part about him is
he takes the great things in people
and makes them shine.”
Spinner is one of those plucked
talents. After working in insurance
and hating it, he enrolled in culinary school. Garces brought him
from El Vez to Amada, and within a
few weeks made him sous chef. He’s
now being groomed to take the role
of head chef at Chilango, and looks
up to his mentor.
“When Jose talks, he’s able to
silence a room,” says Spinner. “It’s
because of his experience and what
he’s done. And he’s very inspiring
because he wants people to follow in
his footsteps. He calls it the ‘Garces
School of Culinary Hard Knocks:
Only the strong survive.’ He talks
to us about how to run a business,
keep costs in line, create specials,
expand horizons in food, how to
control the line and motivate the
cooks to get the food up on time.”
“I try to teach the chefs that being
a chef isn’t only about good food
knowledge. The business aspect is
also very important,’ says Garces.
“It’s not without completing all these
tasks can I let them go. Because I
haven’t done my job if they haven’t
reached that level. Someone focused
and hungry for success can accomplish this in two or three years.”
Despite his current focus on Span-
ish cuisine, Garces says Latin cooking remains a passion. By adding the
spice and heat and tropical flavors
unique to Asia to the Nuevo Latino
model he inherited from Douglas
Rodriguez, Garces hopes to carve
his own niche among star chefs.
After that, he’ll focus on nurturing his restaurants.
“The one thing I learned from Stephen: I feel he grew very fast and
did a lot of great concepts, but there
needs to be a lot of maintenance
and care with each property,” says
Garces. “I want to keep each place I
open very personal and thriving.
“Being a chef/owner you grow
an attachment to each place. It’s
tough,” he continues. “Already I
feel a little bit of separation anxiety
from Amada.”
As for his mentor, Douglas Rodriguez hopes Garces’ next project is
no project. “He’s got to sit down and
slow down a little bit,” says Rodriguez. “I think he’s going too fast.”
With Amada thriving, Tinto days
from opening and Chilango starting
to move from concept to construction, you’d think Garces would be
ready for a break.
He’s not.
“Latin Thai,” he says. “That’ll be
my fourth and final concept here in
Philadelphia.” n
Kate Kilpatrick (kkilpatrick@philadelphia
weekly.com) is PW’s senior arts and
entertainment editor.