Smashburgers will make way for a new Raleigh restaurant with a modern Puerto Rican menu
One of Raleigh’s up-and-coming chefs is set to launch his first restaurant this spring.
Bendito, a new Puerto Rican restaurant, will open in Raleigh’s McNeill Pointe. It’s the first major project from chef Kevin Ruiz, who has cooked in some of Raleigh’s most popular restaurants and recently led The Rockford on Glenwood Avenue.
Ruiz was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in the Triangle and said Bendito represents a opportunity to put a more personal story on the menu.
“It’s my take on modern Puerto Rican cuisine,” Ruiz said. “I’ve done a lot of cuisines and a lot of different styles of food, and now it’s time to do something that comes from the heart.”
Ruiz said his restaurant background in French and Mexican and New American and Italian kitchens will likely influence his take on Puerto Rican food, but he’s not calling it fusion. At this point in dining, that word is kind of redundant, he said.
“Everything is kind of fusion already,” Ruiz said. “I just want to take Puerto Rican food and present it in a way not a lot of people have seen before. I don’t want to fuse it with anything expect myself and my experience.”
A chef worth watching
In the past few years, Ruiz has emerged as a chef worth watching. Before the Rockford, he was the opening chef at Lady Luck, before it closed in the summer of 2020. Before that he had cooked at Wye Hill, MOFU Shoppe and Cortez.
Bendito is a restaurant he’s had on his mind for years, Ruiz said. This month a wallpaper pattern he’s had in his Pinterest for more than two years arrived as those dreams are beginning to take shape.
“I feel like I had a good couple years at The Rockford but was just looking for this, looking for my own place where I could be the lead,” Ruiz said. “I’ve wanted to do a Puerto Rican-influenced concept for a while.”
The new restaurant will move into the current Hightop Burger location in the McNeill Pointe shopping center off of Wake Forest Road in Raleigh. The turnaround will be quick, Ruiz said, with Hightop’s last day planned for April 2. After some redesigns in the dining room, Bendito could open in mid-May with around 50 seats.
Among the dishes Ruiz is developing for Bendito is a yuca confit, an upscale version of papas rellenas, a traditional stuffed potato dumpling, a wagyu chuleta Kan-Kan, a pork chop cut with the crispy belly still attached and as a Sunday special, the plantain dish mofongo served with always changing seafood options.
‘What I was meant to be doing’
For the past two years, Ruiz has been the executive chef of The Rockford, where his food found increasingly brighter spotlights.
“It was the oldest restaurant in Raleigh that I didn’t know anyone going to,” Ruiz said. “My goal was to turn it around and I think we brought it into the forefront. It reassured me that I was doing what I was meant to be doing.”
Hightop could return in the future in a new location, said Hillman Ball, who co-owns the smashburger concept with John Mason. Ball and Mason are owners in Bendito with Ruiz, saying the young chef’s menu drove the transformation of the space.
“Our decision was mainly based off Kevin’s passion and the feeling that Raleigh deserves what he is trying to bring to the culinary scene here,” Ball said. “The opportunity both on the business end as well as the value and gap it fills in the market is stronger than Hightop’s at the moment. ... Right now we are just saying goodbye for now as we look for a new location.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2022 at 12:16 PM with the headline "Smashburgers will make way for a new Raleigh restaurant with a modern Puerto Rican menu."
