A Baja-inspired Mexican restaurant from the team behind Chicheria Mexican Kitchen and Eastside Beltline restaurant Buena Vida Tapas & Sol is coming to Alpharetta.
Amasa Mexican Kitchen will open this summer at Alpharetta City Center, joining a host of other dining concepts at the mixed-use development. It will replace the space Jekyll Brewing vacated last summer.
The restaurant will launch with a fully gluten-free, seafood-forward menu and a tequila program, as well as evening programming that will include live jazz, saxophone performances and Spanish singer-songwriters. A brunch buffet will also be offered on Sundays.
Juan Sebastian Calle and Adam Berlin, the founders of TQM Hospitality, are behind the venture. This is the third restaurant under the company’s portfolio, though one of many launched by the two partners with other event and hospitality groups.
The goal: To make diners feel as if they went on a mini vacation to the Baja California region, Calle told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an exclusive interview.
Alpharetta is TQM’s first location outside of the Perimeter. TQM gravitated toward the area because of its tight-knit feel. Alpharetta is a place where people build routines and relationships around where they dine, which meshed well with the ethos of the company, Calle said. There’s also a high concentration of employers based in the area, which the restaurant can serve through corporate events.
“We invest a lot in our community ties,” Calle said. “We’re very excited to go into a community that seems to have that same passion.”
Amasa is a sister restaurant to Chicheria, so the menu will be “90% the same,” Calle said. Diners can expect dishes like tacos prepared with battered mahi mahi, chargrilled salmon with charred pineapple and chile morita salsa and coconut shrimp with sweet corn crema served on blue corn tortillas. House-made ice cream is also on the menu with fruit sourced from Central America.
Credit: TQM Hospitality
Credit: TQM Hospitality
Both Chicheria and Amasa serve what Calle dubs “conscious food” — scratch-made items using fresh, high-quality produce and seafood.
“When you look at our plates, we use so many different fruits and vegetables and seafood, so you really see the whole color of the rainbow,” Calle said.
The restaurant will have two floors and a rooftop deck. The first floor will have dedicated seating, a bar area and a family room separate from the bar, as well as private dining rooms for corporate events, birthday parties or other functions. The second floor is a dedicated tequila room.
Along with the evening programming, Amasa will host regular culinary-adjacent events, including multicourse tasting dinners, tequila classes and dancing lessons.
TQM wants to become enmeshed with Alpharetta beyond planting its flag in the City Center. Calle said they plan to become involved in the Alpharetta Business Association and connect with different groups across the community.
Certain aspects of the restaurant were designed with the community’s needs in mind, Calle said. His team heard from residents and workers in the area that there weren’t a lot of places to host happy hours outside of the Avalon area, which they hope to solve with its tequila room. Additionally, they learned there were few places for churchgoers in the area to eat brunch after service on Sundays, so they added a brunch buffet option.
“We’re kind of crafting everything to meet some of those voids in the community,” Calle said.
amasamexican.com Amasa Mexican Kitchen. 15 Academy St., Alpharetta.
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