Hundred Dollar Baby

With the opening of Tinto upon us, it seemed like a good idea to revisit Amada, José Garces’s temple of all things Iberian and delicious. Sure, it’s a restaurant that most of us have been to before – and keep going back to.

Its popularity has garnered a reputation for being one of the toughest dinnertime reservations (roughly one month to six weeks on a Saturday night at 8pm) and offering one of the most rewarding dining experiences in town. Not to mention those heavenly cocktails.

But that’s dinner. Lunch proves a far greater challenge, even for a restaurant of this caliber. Without its packed bar and its sexy flamenco dancing and its candled, curtainy dining room – not to mention a chef splitting time between two restaurants – could Amada’s disconcertingly inexpensive lunch deal really provide me with the same authentic experience at a fraction of the cost?

The answer to both questions is a resounding ¡si!

I was able to book a Friday afternoon reservation an hour before I was set to arrive, which is pretty much unheard of here. And as soon as we were seated, it became clear that lunch there would be no mini-Amada dining experience: The restaurant was clicking along on all cylinders, and everything from the service to the food to that irresistible atmosphere-sexy even during the day-was just as alluring as it is at night.

Ms. M. and I both ordered the Catalan Lunch Express, Amada’s lunch deal that just may be one of the best bargains in the city. For $12.50 each, we were both able to choose soup and a salad or sandwich. And while drinks with alcohol are not included (booze-free ones are), we still got out of there, following a two-hour meal, two glasses of wine, and one dessert, for $63.80.

The calabaza soup, pureed pumpkin with a hint of cream, allspice, and a number of other seasonings, was served with a bit of zucchini and queso fresco and garnished with pumpkin seeds and fried sage. It was excellent-the essence of winter, wonderfully rich but not the least bit heavy. But the real highlight of that course was the caldo gallego, a traditional Galician stew of ham and white beans whose depth of flavor outdid that of any other soup I’ve had recently. What struck me most of all was the fact that these two typically dowdy ingredients were somehow made exciting. The flavors the Amada team coaxed out of them was just extraordinary.

As for the rest of the lunch, we decided to taste one salad and one sandwich. As we all know, serving a salad at lunch can be risky-it’s far too easy to overdo it in order to send people home satisfied. And most of the time, in my experience, any sense of elegance is the first casualty. No need to worry here. In this case, the Serrano ham and fig salad we ordered was perfectly assembled, the salty ham and the sweet figs balancing each other beautifully, the cabrales (Spanish blue cheese) giving it a sense of depth, and the sherry vinaigrette cutting through it all with precision.

And as no restaurant in town can seem to resist trying their hand at the cheese steak, I was dying to see what Amada would do to make it seem new. Here, the skirt steak pepito was served with richly caramelized onions (in fact, they were a bit sweet for my taste, but Ms. M. went crazy over them), sliced tomato, and cabrales, all of it anointed with oregano oil. It was a messy, lusty sandwich, the slices of meat tender and rich, the flavors bordering on exuberant.

Thoroughly stuffed yet inexplicably ready for more of Amada’s food, we finished off the meal with the chocolate trio, a more than generous dish featuring chocolate – paprika ice cream, chocolate orange cake, and rosemary-chocolate mousse, a fabulous preparation that tasted every bit as wonderful as the idea of it sounded odd.

I was not surprised by the quality of my lunch at Amada. After all, a restaurant has to earn a reputation like the one this one has. But what did take me by surprise was the crowd: I saw lots of wine being consumed in the middle of a Friday, and even the people who looked as if they were dressed in their work clothes seemed to be having a bit too good a time to head back to the office.

But I guess that’s what a place like Amada does to people. Apparently its Spanish spirit is contagious-even in the middle of the day.

Amada, 217 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, 215.625.2450; www.amadarestaurant.com