Chef Bolivar Hilario outside R.S.V.P. in West Cornwall, Connecticut.
Hilario is taking a slightly different approach. The redesign of the room has been carefully considered, as have the utensils and dishes. While Birster specialized in French cuisine, Hilario’s skills and palate are more internationally based. His family is Mexican, he trained under a chef who fastidiously studied Japanese techniques, and he’s worked in a wide variety of kitchens himself. Add to all that his approach to fresh, local and seasonal ingredients, and you have the perfect storm for some incredible dishes.
But food wasn’t always Hilario’s passion. He found it almost by accident. While he credits his mother and sisters for helping develop his taste for real food instead of the junk his childhood friends were eating, it wasn’t until working as a dishwasher at a chain restaurant in Florida that he noticed the possibilities of what food could be.
Cherry tomatoes, sour milk, tosazu vinegar, blackberriesD.H. Callahan
The kitchen caught his attention, and he was quickly asking the chefs why they did what they did. He’d poke and prod, asking why not substitute this ingredient for another. But even the most experienced chefs weren’t allowed to mess with a corporate menu. Instead, Hilario started experimenting with his own food. He’d come in early and use the tools of the industrial kitchens to learn how ingredients worked together to create surprisingly different results.
Soon, his passions had grown too big for the constraints of the corporate restaurants that dominated Florida’s food scene. So, he packed his bags and headed for New York City. While still working his way up, he found the city was more encouraging of innovation and curiosity than Florida had been. The chefs he worked with took his ideas seriously, but more importantly, they had the freedom to put those ideas on a menu. It was then that Hilario became obsessed with the radical potential of ingredients, techniques, textures and flavor combinations. It was then that his interests turned almost academic, reading about and absorbing all the knowledge other chefs were willing to share.
When he came to Connecticut, a whole new world opened up. First at Ore Hill and Swyft in Kent, he took the opportunity to meet the farmers growing his ingredients. By the time he’d worked his way up to becoming the executive chef at Community Table in New Preston, he was wowing everyone who walked in, including voters for some serious awards. In 2025, with a menu designed by Hilario, Community Table won Restaurant of the Year and Best Restaurant in Litchfield County from the Connecticut Restaurant Association. Then, in 2026, Hilario himself was named a semifinalist for the James Beard Best Chef in the Northeast award.
But now he’s out on his own. Following in the footsteps of R.S.V.P.’s founders, the restaurant is still a blind tasting menu, and flavor is still king. When you request a reservation, Hilario will email you, asking about allergies or aversions. He can cook around almost any dietary restriction and even finds some of them an exciting challenge. After that, there are no more decisions. You’ll eat what he makes, and what he makes is sensational. The blending of ingredients and regional highlights will wow diners with every bite.
The price, however, is something that might deter many potential diners, especially in a recession. But if you can afford to drop a few bills on a special dinner, it’s well worth it. Hilario argues that “it’s better to pay for good food at a restaurant than it is to pay for bad food at the doctors’ office.” And good food with good ingredients is certainly what they’re serving at R.S.V.P.
The restaurant opened on Sept. 1 and will have an abbreviated menu available for half price on Tuesdays. Wednesday through Sunday will feature the full menu, and all nights are B.Y.O.B. To learn more and request a reservation, go to rsvpdining.com.
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Crowds went undeterred by scattered showers during the final day of Millerton’s Fine Art Festival on Sunday, Sept. 6.
Falls Village, Connecticut, resident and abstract photographer Tom T. Hall was selling prints of his photographs near the Rail Trail last weekend. He said the festival was the third he had brought his work to since committing to his abstract fine art photographic practice.
“I started doing this abstract photography seriously about five years ago,” Hall said. “This year we just started coming out to some festivals and trying it out.”
Hall started out in photography working on Wall Street, producing photo and video shoots for clients in the finance industry. He left that work shortly after the covid-19 pandemic began, moved up to Falls Village and shifted into fine art work.
Hall said he draws inspiration from abstract and modernist artists of the 20th century — Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock to name a few. He aims to use the camera and light like a paint brush to create abstract images. The resulting photographs are stunning fields of bizarre colors and textures that resemble abstract expressionist paintings, but not everything he creates is completely non-representational.
Another fascination is liminal spaces, and how even non-abstract images can create unsettling and inexplicable feelings in a viewer when devoid of context. Images that make sense at face value — such as two paintings on a patterned wall or a small, vacant shed overlooking a corn field — can cause dread or confusion if composed in photographs that intentionally obscure important details or information.
“It’s like, ‘what am I looking at?’” Hall said. “It makes your feelings abstract, even though you see what it is. It makes you feel a little off.”
Madeline Hartwell, left, visits Tom Hall’s vendor tent along the Harlem Valley Rail Trail during The Voice of Art’s Fine Art Festival in Millerton.Photo by Nathan Miller
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