Juan Amador is one of Europe’s leading avant garde chefs, drawing on his Spanish heritage (he was born in the Swabian town of Strümpfelbach in southern Germany to Spanish immigrant parents) and contemporary Spanish cuisine to create his own unmistakeable style. After an apprenticeship at Gasthof Lamm restaurant in Weinstadt, he worked as sous chef to the influential and highly respected chef Albert Bouley at the one Michelin- starred Waldhorn in Ravensburg.

Amador won his first star as head chef of Restaurant Petersilie in Lüdenscheid and went on to even greater success at Schlosshof restaurant in Aschaffenburg where, in 2002 he won two Michelin stars. In 2004, Amador opened his eponymous restaurant in Langen near Frankfurt where he finally achieved three Michelin star status in 2008. The restaurant was also featured on a list of the 35 best restaurants in Germany and regularly appeared in the long list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. In April 2016, Amador moved his operations to Vienna where Amador’s Restaurant won two Michelin stars in 2017.

The Michelin Guide says that Amador combines ‘intensive flavours and high-quality ingredients to create sophisticated food that is strong on detail’ while the chef himself says that his food is centred around product, taste and creativity. “The inspiration for my cooking is all the old techniques from the classic French cuisine and modern techniques from modern Spanish cuisine and also travelling all around the world, for example Asia,” says Amador.

Set in an elegant vaulted wine cellar on the edge of Heiligenstädter Park in the north of Vienna, Amador’s Restaurant has spaces for both fine dining and a more casual brasserie serving traditional Viennese fare such as baked calf’s head and bacon wrapped zander. The menu at the gastronomic restaurant includes some of Amador’s most famous dishes including Dove Mieral served with mango, coconut and a purple curry sauce made with hibiscus, Brick in the Wall dessert with spiced milk, salted caramel, yoghurt and beetroot, and foie gras ice cream, an invention that has been imitated around the world.

Amador has also operated the Michelin-star restaurants Tasca in Wiesbaden, Amesa in Mannheim and Sra Bua by Juan Amador, a Pan Asian restaurant in the Kempinski Hotel, Frankfurt. In addition to the two stars in Vienna, Amador also holds a star for Alma Restaurant at the Goodwood Park Hotel in Singapore.