RESTAURANT NEWS | CONNECTICUT
A James Beard Semifinalist Takes Over Tiny RSVP
At the 16-seat Connecticut restaurant, chef Bolivar Hilario serves an ever-changing tasting menu informed by his Mexican heritage and Japanese and French technique.
RSVP | MAP | INSTAGRAM
By Maria Rodriguez
7:18 a.m. ET, Sept. 18, 2026
AUTHOR BIO: With a day job that requires constant travel, Maria Rodriguez is likely a regular at your favorite restaurant. She’s reviewed restaurants since 2007 in magazines from Spain to Seattle.
Some chefs celebrate becoming James Beard Award semifinalists by adding another framed certificate to the office wall. Bolivar Hilario followed his 2026 nomination for Best Chef: Northeast by buying one of Connecticut’s smallest and most idiosyncratic restaurants.
Hilario reopened RSVP in West Cornwall this month, succeeding longtime owners Charles Cilona and Guy Birster. The restaurant has only 16 seats, no liquor license, and no fixed menu. Diners bring their own bottles and surrender the rest of the evening to the kitchen.
Bolivar Hilario
Hilario kept that arrangement largely intact. RSVP now serves an eight-course menu that changes almost weekly, with two seatings each night. Dinner costs $180 per person, while Tuesday’s industry night offers a shorter, three-course menu at half the price.
The new owner arrives with plenty of momentum. Hilario spent three years as executive chef of Community Table in New Preston, which won Restaurant of the Year and Best Restaurant in Litchfield County from the Connecticut Restaurant Association during his tenure. His résumé also includes New York restaurants Chumley’s, Shoji, and the Michelin-starred Musket Room, plus Ore Hill and Swyft in Connecticut.
At RSVP, those experiences meet his Mexican heritage and the farms and forests of northwest Connecticut. Early dishes have included a blue corn infladita filled with spicy avocado and topped with tuna glazed in egg yolk and soy sauce. A black bass aguachile arrived with ground cherries, serrano chiles, and wood sorrel picked outside the restaurant. Wild king salmon came with summer squash and lemongrass beurre blanc. Even dessert avoids easy predictability. Hilario has served a tamalito with caramel, salted plums steeped with hibiscus, and buttermilk ice cream.
The chef and his small staff prepare the meal in view of the dining room, then help serve it and explain where the ingredients originated. “I want it to feel like you came to a dinner party,” Hilario told CTbites.
Dinner parties rarely require an online reservation request and $180, of course. They also rarely involve a James Beard semifinalist cooking eight courses a few feet away. At RSVP, 16 people each night get that distinction.
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By MARIA RODRIGUEZ
