Longtime Stephen Starr chef debuts high-end Mexican restaurant in Kensington
After years of cooking for others, chef Frankie Ramirez comes into his own with Amá.
From the time Frankie Ramirez started cooking professionally nearly two decades ago, his employers “always had an idea of what they wanted to do and what they wanted me to cook,” he said, be it pasta at Tredici or duck confit at Parc.
Now Ramirez is in charge. This week, he’s opening Amá, a high-end Mexican bar-restaurant on Front Street in Kensington-Fishtown. A native of Mexico City, Ramirez, 38, is delivering a menu whose dishes cover all of Mexico — not the usual “Puebladelphia” fare or the coastal stylings of Tequilas, the recently reopened Center City destination that shares Amá’s luxe ambition and price tag.
At Amá, open daily for dinner, Ramirez offers 16 dishes, plus an eye-catching basket of corn tostadas served with six variations of salsas (one from each region) and a small bowl of guacamole; it’s his take on chips and salsa. Ten of the plates are starters, such as the crunchy tempura-fried huauzontle (a.k.a. Aztec broccoli), grilled Caesar salad, and a tostada generously topped with shrimp ceviche.
Ramirez offers only one taco: It’s topped with grilled swordfish, creamy jocoque, pickled onions, and zesty salsa árabe. But six dishes are served with a basket of tortillas and easily shareable. There’s chili-braised beef cheeks, carne asada (a wagyu picanha served with a side of hoja santa chochoyotes, or tiny masa dumplings), pollo à la leña, lamb neck birria, the Yucatecan Mayan fish dish Tikin Xic (a whole striped bass, butterflied), and wood-fired octopus in salsa macha verde and meco sauce with sweet potatoes and black rice. Figure on about $80 per person, plus drinks.
Eight cocktails (two with sotol, a distilled spirit similar to agave-based spirits, but made with a different plant), a few wines and beers, and two nonalcoholic beverages round out the drinks list.
Ramirez compiled an enviable kitchen resume, starting with his days as a dishwasher at the old Washington Square under Marcus Samuelsson. He worked the line at Bliss, Morimoto, Parc, Butcher & Singer, and Parc before becoming an executive chef in 2016, first at Tredici Enoteca, then at Refectory Grill, before the 2020 opening of LMNO.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that Ramirez saw the chance to become a restaurateur. One night, he cooked dinner for Roberto Medina and Crisalida Mata, the husband-and-wife team behind La Catrina in Media and, with business partner Claudio Sandolo, Spasso in Media and Agave Mexican Cuisine in Chadds Ford.
Eating dishes such as ostiones rasurados (oysters, aguachile verde, aguachile rojo granita) and cured duck breast with plantain and mole negro, “we were blown away,” Mata said. “We said, ‘This guy needs his own restaurant.’” The couple decided to make that happen, joining him and his wife, Verónica, in Amá.
Last week, while working the grill during a preview dinner, Ramirez reflected: “Now that I finally got the chance, I think that’s a huge opportunity. It’s priceless. What’s the most important thing for an artist? Freedom to follow your passion and your heart.”
Through the doors, the dining room buzzed. Chefs such as Carlos Aparicio (El Chingón) and Cristina Martinez (Casa Mexico) were spotted tucking into snacks at the bar.
Boxwood Architects opted for a subdued, refined look: white textured plaster walls with cactus-filled niches, wooden beams, terracotta and copper-colored accents, and a bar that runs more than half the length of the dining room. Operable full-length windows frame the corner of Front and Oxford Streets as the Market-Frankford El chugs overhead.
At the far end of the dining room is an open window into the kitchen, where Ramirez and his chefs tend to the 8-foot charcoal- and wood-fired grill and turn out heirloom corn tortillas on a comal. Passersby can also watch the cooking through the Front Street window — reminiscent of the old setup at Bliss, the Broad Street bistro where Ramirez met his wife two decades ago, when they were the only Spanish-speaking employees in chef Francesco Martorella’s kitchen.
The front of the house is in the hands of general manager Stacey Becerril, last at Oxomoco, a Michelin-starred Mexican restaurant in Brooklyn. “When you go to Mexico, they treat you like you’re family,” Ramirez said. “To make this restaurant work, we have to offer a fine experience.”
The partners chose the restaurant-rich neighborhood — situating Amá across the street from Goldie, down the block from the new Percy, and around the corner from Jaffa Bar — specifically for its younger population. “I think the food that Frankie cooks is pretty special so it needs to be in a place where people are open-minded and willing to try new things,” Mata said.
The name Amá — short for mamá, and pronounced “ah-MAH” — has special meaning to Ramirez. “My father had two marriages and I never met my mom,” he said. “She left when I was 6 months old. My stepmother — she’s an angel — I was raised by her. I think ‘amá’ is important for any Mexican, not just for me. I think the word ‘amá’ gets tied with food, with love, with care, with passion. You’re never going to see a Mexican hate his mom. Amá is the strongest word for Mexicans — I think for anyone — but Amá is the word that represents everything that we want to do.’”
Amá, 101 W. Oxford St., Philadelphia, (215) 933-0707, amaphl.com. Open Sunday through Thursday 5 to 10 p.m., 5 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Reservations on Resy.