Jose Garces opens Amada Radnor in the Philadelphia suburbs

Philadelphia-based chef Jose Garces has opened a third location of his Spanish restaurant Amada in the suburban township of Radnor, Pa. It’s the eighth restaurant he has opened in the past year.

The new two-level restaurant covers 7,000 square feet and seats around 250 people in the bar, lounge, dining room, and two patios, plus room for 25 at the bar and a private event space for up to 45 guests.

As with the other Amada locations, the menu has a variety of tapas, including wagyu beef skewers, empanadas — such as Garces’s signature one with Manchego cheese and artichoke escabeche — and a potato omelet called a tortilla Española, plus entrées such as Paella Valenciana made with rabbit and chorizo, and Garces’s whole roasted sucking pig. Amada Radnor will also feature exclusive dishes cooked in the restaurant’s Mibrasa wood-burning ovens, including Galician style octopus with potato foam, gamtae seaweed, and smoked paprika; herb crusted tuna with boquerone aïoli; and roasted sea bream with golden quinoa and creamy anchovy. A new feature from the bar is the Gin Tonic Tableside Experience: An alcohol-laden cart that allows guests to select their own gin infused with lemon, grapefruit, lime, or orange, as well as garnishes for the drink that is prepared tableside with Fever Tree tonic.

The bar also will feature more than 100 Spanish wines.

"Amada is near and dear to my heart," Garces said in a press release announcing the new location. "It was the very first restaurant I opened when I went out on my own in 2005. It will be a great addition to the exciting and rapidly growing Main Line dining scene. We have so many Garces fans from over the years come join us in Old City [in Philadelphia], and now we are bringing the concept right to them in their own backyards."

The second Amada location is at the Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, N.J.

Garces entered suburban Philadelphia area known as the Main Line last year with the opening of a fast-casual restaurant, Buena Onda.
In the past year Garces also opened Buena Onda locations in Rittenhouse Square, at the Wells Fargo Center, home of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team and 76ers basketball team, and at the Concourse of the Comcast Center office building. Additionally, he opened Garces Eats at the Club Level of the Wells Fargo Center, offering a rotating selection of dishes from his other restaurants. He also opened two locations of Garces Trading Company, a café, bakery and market — one at the Kimmel Cultural Campus and one at Cira Centre office building.

All of those new restaurants are in Philadelphia, and are part of the Garces Group, which the chef sold to Ballard Brands in 2018.

“Five years ago, we created this strategic partnership with Chef Jose Garces and couldn’t be more pleased by the ways our talents and resources have aligned,” Ballard Brands & Ideation Hospitality Owner Steven Ballard said in a statement. “Within the last year, Ballard Brands and Ideation Hospitality provided the launch pad for national franchise chain, Buena Onda, in addition to opening four new locations. Together, we also brought back storied brand Garces Trading Company and opened two new locations. Now, we are opening the third location of Chef Garces’ flagship brand, Amada, on the Main Line. We’re excited to watch this beloved fine dining concept continue to expand nationally.”
The restaurant’s design, by Dash Design, borrows elements from the other two Amada locations based on Spanish Colonial Revival style. Lott Builds undertook the construction of the property, which is being leased from Brandywine Realty Trust.