And, of course, there is the accessory no hot chef can do without - a gorgeous, if maddeningly complicated, new cookbook.
But it didn't come easy, or without setbacks (an early pratfall at New York's Bolivar grill), or street-corner taunts aimed at his non-Nordic skin tone, the badge of the Ecuadoran heritage that, eventually, would prove the opposite of a burden: It would be the wellspring of his success.
Indeed, Amada, his first hit single - turning three years old next month - is named after the beloved grandmother he summered with as a child in Quito.
His roots became his rock: On the corncake arepas his Spanish-speaking mother put on the kitchen table, and the ceviches of those Ecuadoran summers, he would build his palate - and an emergent restaurant empire strung, coincidentally, along Chestnut Street, from Old City to West Philadelphia, serving some of the most enchanting food in the city.
So it has come to pass that the young chef who could hardly find a moment to make a friend for a year after he moved to the city eight years ago (to oversee Alma de Cuba for nuevo Latino godfather Douglas Rodriguez and restaurateur Stephen Starr) now employs a staff of 285.
Wearing a blue-checked shirt, Garces stood behind a cooktop last week at Amada, shaking a pan of littlenecks, re-creating a dish - clams with bomba rice and confit artichokes - that he first encountered on a prospecting visit to northern Spain a few years ago. (The recipe is in Latin Evolution, his new cookbook, with April White; you can watch him making it on the video accompanying this piece.)
