Chef Jose Garces and his wife, Dr. Beatriz Garces, at Revel’s new Amada.

ATLANTIC CITY — Acclaimed chef Jose Garces hosted a media event on Thursday, May 10, to formally introduce his latest Atlantic City restaurant Amada — also the namesake of the first of eight restaurants he opened in Philadelphia.

To see a video of the event, click here.

Amada is one of three Garces-owned establishments at Revel, the other two being Village Whiskey (a pub with signature burgers and over six dozen brands of bourbon), and Distrito Cantina (a festive margarita bar with a selection of 100 tequilas, modern Mexican street food and tacos from a Guapos take-out window). The three are incorporated into a Garces Group that owns or operates 16 restaurants in several states.

Amada is a tapas or “small plates” restaurant specializing in traditional and somewhat unusual Spanish fare. Amada’s main dining room offers panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean, and much of the produce used in the recipes is homegrown by chef Garces on a 40-acre farm in suburban Philadelphia.

“In 2007 I was approached by Revel Resorts’ [CEO] Kevin DeSanctis, who asked me to come look at this project and asked if I was interested in hosting and building some restaurants here,” Garces tells Atlantic City Weekly. “When I took a look at the plans, I was sold. The place is absolutely fantastic, and I think my restaurants will be a good complement to what’s going on here.”

Garces won the prestigious James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Mid-Atlantic Region in 2009, won the Food Network’s Next Iron Chef in 2010 and was recently inducted into the Menu Masters Hall of Fame — “I’m pretty proud of that one,” he says.

Garces’ culinary career began in Chicago after graduating from that city’s Kendall College in 1996. He moved to Spain for a year, honed his craft on the New York City’s restaurant scene for a while, and in 2000 moved to Philadelphia where he worked for famed restaurateur Stephen Starr (who owns the Continental and Buddakan in The Pier Shops at Casears).

Garces opened Amada in Philadelphia in 2005. Anthony Scuderi is the Chef de Cuisine at Amada in Atlantic City.

“Amada specializes in Spanish tapas focusing in the southern region,” says Scuderi. “One of our specialties is called cochinillo asado, a whole suckling pig brined and slow-roasted for 36 hours and carved tableside. Another is Spanish octopus — a classic dish poached in a red wine vinegar and searched in a pan with garlic oil, lemon juice and smoked paprika.

“Tapas means ’small dishes’ — it’s all meant to be shared,” says Scuderi. “So come in with a group of four people, get three or four dishes to share, everybody gets a bite of everything and has a great time.”

Tags: Amada, Chef Jose Garces, Distrito Cantina, Food Network's Next Iron Chef, Garces Group, Kendall College, revel, Village Whiskey

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2012 at 2:56 pm and is filed under AC Development, Atlantic City Miscellany, Dining, Food, Local News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.