Bangkok--29 Dec--Mandarin Oriental
Langen near Frankfurt is not exactly a well-known small town nor has it ever been famous for anything. Until a few years ago it was hardly worth a journey for foreign travelers. Nowadays Langen is a popular destination for people from all over the world. Their destination is a timbered house in a small and unimpressive street. One of the most modern and exciting restaurants in Germany is located behind these historic walls. If you believe in the highest authority of all the restaurant guides it belongs to the best culinary sports in the country: three Michelin star restaurant Amador.
Ever since the opening in 2004, Amador has been amazing a maximum up to 40 guests each night with incomparable flavor experiences. Amador’s creations unfold subtly in one’s mouth, they open the door to a new world of flavors and are fireworks of aromas and consistencies — quite inspiring to most people. It may not always be possible to identify with your eyes which products have been used to create those fancy bits on your plate, because Amador creates a highly complex optical work of art. But the taste is what it’s all about. The food aims right to the taste buds.
Juan Amador is a master of his play with aromas, textures and degrees of heat and unknown combinations of aromas are the result. “My food should stay in people’s mind”, is the dictum of the 39-year-old German chef with Spanish origins. Every evening he is working hard to achieve his aim and he often stands in his kitchen for 16 hours, handling products and using modern techniques until the result is perfect. His knowledge about the interaction of physical-chemical processes which he acquired during many years and developed with experts like the staff of the “Technology transfer Center Bremerhaven” is an important part of his work. So he belongs to the outstanding representatives of the so-called molecular cuisine, or avant-garde-as Amador puts it, like Ferran Adria, Homaro Cantu and Heston Blumenthal. Amador refuses the classification “molecular chef” for himself, because he thinks it’s just a fashion word for something that has always existed behind the stoves.
Especially the avant-garde around the Catalan Ferran Adria is and inspiration for Amador’ s personal style. His revolutionary way of cooking aroused him. Today, this technique serves him as a base, as a vehicle on the search for the perfect flavor experience. When he came to meet the star chef in 1997 for the first time in his restaurant “El Bulli” near Barcelona, only a few people knew Adria. Besides, the Spanish cuisine just started off very hesitatingly to get some attention in Europe, which until then was formed by the French Haute Cuisine. Today, Juan Amador thinks that this day was a turning point in his life, and awakening of a self-confidence unknown to him before, both as a Spaniard and a chef. After this epiphany he started creating his own style. Though he emphasizes “We try to cultivate the avant-garde from Spain, not to copy it”
Juan Amador is not a pretender, because in spite of all the gimmicks and surprises in his meals, the celebrity attitude seems strange to him, he event feels disgusted by it. The provocation some see in his cuisine never happens for the sake of provocation — nitrogen, calcium chloride and other ingredients simply serve to bring the product to perfection and accentuate single aromas — even if sometimes a certain effect of entertainment for the guests is part of the preparation. One example is how fluid nitrogen is used in front of the guests to transform a gin tonic mousse into a cool and mouth-refreshing ice. The taste buds are washed by it and well prepared for the next dish like.
In spite of all innovation Amador doesn’t forget where he comes from : His creations reflect the cooking tradition of his parent’s home Spain. The daily menu at the Amador is call “Mary Muntanya”, a classic of the Catalan cuisine which combines specialties of fish and meat, interpreted in a new way. Every course of the 25 small and big pieces is a work of art, both visually and through the flavor. In all the dishes the French cuisine is subliminally there, but Amador leaves the beaten paths and, one example, prefers to cook the traditionally fried liver much more gently, vacuum-packed in a convectomat with hot steam. This is only one of many achievements of science, which Amador naturally uses and which have nothing to do with pretending.
There is one quote that Juan Amador extremely likes : It depends on our fortune, if we achieve what we resolve. But to want is a matter of the heart. “ (Ortegay Gasset). As a chef, Juan Amador with ambition and discipline has achieved almost everything that one can dream of. Sometimes destiny goes strange ways he actually dreamed of taking many jobs, but never working as a chef. He was born in 1968 in a little town near Stuttgart as the son of Spanish parents. Actually he wanted to become a lawyer, his mother saw him as a doctor. After all, he put on a white uniform and started an apprenticeship in the small restaurant ,,Lamm” in Weinstadt. It was a coincidence, because the apprenticeship position as hotel manager that he wanted to get was not available. Even though the work was hard and he spent long hours in the kitchen het set his mind on continuing on this path. Other stations inspired his eagerness to experiment, especially at restaurant Bouley at the hotel ,,Waldhorn” in Ravensburg. Within three years he became the Sous-Chef of Bouley. Amador knows that this was a very important period for him. With his Asian cooking style, Bouley influenced Amador’ s sense for the minimalistic and the aesthetics of the arrangement.
At restaurant ,,Petersilie” in L?denscheid he became chef de cuisine for the first time and his work was awarded with a Michelin star in 1993. Back then Amador was only 25 years old. He stayed at Petersilie u til 1997 and went to the German island Sylt for three years afterwords. The famous ,,Fahrhaus Munkmarsch” was his place of choice and he immediately received a Michelin star again. Afterwords he was chef de cuisine at the hotel-restaurant ,,Schlosshotel Weyberh?fe” near Aschaffenburg. Again he managed to cook for a Michelin star within a short period of time.
He took his step to independency in the beginning of 2004 and opened his first own restaurant ,,Amador”, together with business partner Eric Beuerle. The same year gourmet magazine Feinschmecker awarded it ,,Restaurant of the year”, and in 2006 Michelin labeled it two stars. While Amador spoils his guests with ,,reinterpretation of the classic Catalan-Basque-French kitchen” in Langen, he uses his ,,Atelier Amador’’ in Frankfurt for food experiments and innovation. This sanctuary was opened in the end of 2005 and also serves as a location for tastings, product presentations and cooking classes. In the end of 2006 he opened his second restaurant ,,Tasca’’ in Wiesbaden where his best chefs prepare his classic dishes like ,,quail egg in caramel net “ or ,,goose liver with apple, smoked eel and charcoal oil” . At the same time his cookbook ,,Tapas’’ illustrates the modernity of his cooking-style with impressive pictures.
In 2007 the coronation : ,,Amador” in Langen received its third Michelin star the highest award a chef can name his own — just two years and seven months after the opening. Now Amador belongs to the nine best chefs in Germany. At the same time his second restaurant ,,Tasca’’ was awarded with the first star. However, Juan Amador, who combines German discipline and Spanish spirit already has new plans for the future.
He plans to open a new restaurant I the center of Frankfurt in 2009 where he will offer traditional German cuisine in Amador style, of course. In spite of his openness for everything new, the most innovative chef in Germany stays down-to-earth- for the sake of his guests.
Juan Amador is the owner of the three star restaurant Amador in Langen, the star restaurant Tasca in Wiesbaden and the Atelier Amador in Frankfurt-Fechenheim. The 39-year-old German with Spanish roots sees himself as a chef of the avant-garde presenting his ,,new interpretation of the classical Catalan-Basque-French cuisine”. The most modern techniques and scientific methods influence his work. Currently, the restaurant Amador is the ,,Best Restaurant in Germany 2008”, awarded by the restaurant guide Bertelsmann. The wine menu is nominated as the best Spanish wine menu in Germany by Gault Millau.
Contact :
Gourmet Connection Fon. + 49-69-25 78 128-0
Susanne Drexler, Teresa Sorg Fax + 49-69-25 78 128 - 11
MoselstraBe 4 Mail.info@gourmet-connection.de
D-60329 Frankfurt www.gourmet-connection.de