Frankie Ramirez says he was not ready to be an executive chef when he was chosen to launch the kitchen at Stephen Starr’s LMNO in 2020. He was not ready to tame the brutal heat of its live fire hearth; he was not ready to fight the corporate bosses who kept urging him to abandon his regional aspirations and just make nachos; he was not yet ready, in fact, to even cook Mexican food. “I was scared of how other Mexicans would judge me,” Ramirez says. Ramirez was born in Mexico City and acquired his culinary chops in Philadelphia restaurants such as Morimoto, Bliss, Tredici, and Parc, where he was a sous-chef for six years. But he didn’t grow up learning to cook. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” said Ramirez. Flash forward five years, and step one block south on Front Street from LMNO into the airy white dining room of two-month-old Amá. It’s clear that Ramirez is more than ready now. He’s figured out those tortillas and so much more in his quest to redefine the possibilities of ...