At Ambra, co-owners Chef Chris D’Ambro and Marina de Oliveira deliver an exceptional multi-course modern Italian dining experience. Located in the heart of Philadelphia’s Queen Village neighborhood and adjacent to their first restaurant, Southwark, Ambra offers two unique dining options to enjoy their seasonal tasting menu.
The Chef’s Counter in the kitchen provides a front-row seat for two to four guests to the talented and poised team of chefs at work during a night of service. You can find the evening’s hand-written menu on the wall amongst freshly arranged florals by Marina. The dining room is full of personalized touches from fresh flowers and candles, to handcrafted furniture, the room provides for an intimate and delicious dinner party.
Beginning with an “apertivi” of light snacks and a spritz and ending with handmade desserts and amaro, Chef and the Ambra team usher guests through a personal and unique tasting menu that changes with each season.
The Chef’s Counter
The Dining Room
“Well before the dessert course, when you’re scooping pumpkin tiramisù from the depths of a hollowed-out gourd, you’ll get the feeling that Ambra isn’t a typical fine-dining experience. Despite all the hallmarks of a lofty occasion meal — the seven-course menu, the $300 price tag (which includes a wine or alcohol-free drink pairing, tax and tip) — the Modern Italian boîte run by the chef Chris D’Ambro and his wife, Marina de Oliveira, lacks all stuffiness.”
– New York Times
“There are open-concept restaurants where you can see the kitchen from your table, but when was the last time you ate inside a working kitchen? Chris D’Ambro and Marina de Oliveira’s Ambra is less a restaurant and more an immersive dinner-and-a-show event. From a little counter, you can watch D’Ambro and his team bring dishes like wild venison chop and braciole with matsutake mushroom and house-made tortellini to life, surrounded by vases of fresh-cut flowers arranged by de Oliveira. It’s an uncommonly intimate meal, and thanks to a constantly changing menu, every show is one-night-only.”
– Philadelphia Magazine
“Ambra is an all-in commitment for a gastronomic adventure that winds through a three-and-a-half hour saga of inventive plates and fascinating wines.”
- Philadelphia Inquirer
For a restaurant serving a once-in-a-presidential-term kind of meal, Ambra is delightfully laidback. Reservations come in two varieties: you can either snag a spot at one of the four seats at the kitchen counter in front of the chefs, or sit at the single communal table in the dining room. The former is ideal for an intimate date night between people who have always felt a cosmic kinship with Anthony Bourdain. But the latter is a wine-, truffle-, and caviar-fueled party with nine new friends, and a key element distinguishing Ambra from other amazing Philly restaurants.
- The Infatuation
“The cozy candle-lit communal dining room is an eye-catcher: Exposed brick, handcrafted wooden features like natural wood stained cabinets, and family heirlooms fill out the contemporary space (I’m obsessed with a vintage secretary desk in the back corner, once owned by D’Ambro’s father). From start to finish, there were elements of delightful surprise in each dish that transported me to another world.
... I just experienced one of the best meals of my life with the most important person in my life and it all felt as if I were at D’Ambro and de Oliveira’s home.”
- Resy