Jose Garces Wiki

Chef Jose Garces has fast become one of the country’s most distinguished chefs.  He has opened four acclaimed restaurants since October 2005 through his acclaimed Garces Restaurant Group.  In July 2008, Garces opened Distrito, which celebrates the inspired cuisine of Mexico City.  Earlier this year, in March, he launchedMercat a la Planxa, a Barcelona-style tapas restaurant in his hometown of Chicago.  Mercat, a collaboration with Denver-based Sage Restaurant Group, was Garces’ first restaurant outside of Philadelphia.  His second venture, Tinto, a wine bar inspired by Basque country, the coastal and mountainous region shared by Spain and France, was one of Philadelphia’s most highly anticipated restaurants when it opened in February 2007, on the heels of the tremendous acclaim that greeted his flagship restaurant, Amada, in October 2005.

Chef Garces recently appeared as a challenger on Food Network’s wildly popular Iron Chef America, defeating Bobby Flay in inimitable style.  In September 2008, his first cookbook, Latin Evolution, was printed by Lake Isle Press.

Called the “Latin Emeril” by one food critic for his wide smile and educational approach to food, Chef Garces, who the prestigious James Beard Foundation nominated for its “Best Chef Mid-Atlantic” award in 2007 and 2008, has long been an ambassador of contemporary Latin cuisine, appearing regularly in the New York Times, Travel & Leisure, Esquire, Cooking Light, Restaurant Hospitality, Conde Nast Traveler, National Geographic Traveler, Philadelphia Magazine, Travel Channel’s Epicurious TV, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Wall Street Journal and Philadelphia Inquirer.

Chef Garces, an American chef born to Ecuadorian parents and raised in Chicago, began his culinary training in the kitchen of his paternal grandmother.  His resume includes stints at several high profile restaurants and an apprenticeship with Nuevo Latino pioneer Douglas Rodriguez, who introduced Garces to Philadelphia, where he assumed the role of executive chef at two popular restaurants, which he ran simultaneously. 

In developing his personal cooking style, something he says is an ongoing pursuit, Garces spent years perfecting different cuisines in top rated professional kitchens.  After graduating from Kendall College’s Culinary School (where his final project was a traditional-modern tapas restaurant much like Amada), Garces apprenticed at La Taberna del Alabardero, in Marbella, Spain.  Upon his return to the United States, he went to work for Waldy Malouf in Manhattan’s legendary Rainbow Room.  While there, the restaurant received a three-star review from the New York Times. 

Following his term at the Rainbow Room, Garces went to another notable New York restaurant, 5757 in the Four Seasons Hotel, where he turned out eclectic and elegant American fare under Susan Weaver, another three-star review winner.  “By that time, I was a little confused about cuisine,” he remembers.  “I wanted something that was long-term – something to make me happy.”  And like many chefs, he went back to his roots. 

“I decided to focus on my first love: Latin cuisine,” Garces says.  This decision led to his long and satisfying relationship with Rodriguez, the flamboyant, award-winning chef.  The chefs worked together at Rodriguez’s New York restaurants Pipa and Chicama; when Rodriguez decided to open a Cuban restaurant in Philadelphia, Garces was at the top of a short list of chefs he wanted to run it.  Two years later, Garces was chosen to simultaneously oversee the kitchen at modern Mexican restaurant El Vez, an experience that he feels crystallized his professional identity.  “Warm-blooded food with a festive feel,” is how Garces describes the cuisine he created there.  

“My progressive approach to cooking is rooted in traditional ingredients and methods,” he says.  “It’s a style that brings into play everything I have learned from three-star chefs as well as from the Latin American cooks I have worked with in other restaurants.”