R.S.V.P. on Railroad Street in West Cornwall reopened on September 1 under a new owner. It has the same name, a room of about the same size, the same BYOB policy and the same habit of not telling you what's for dinner. The new owner is Bolivar Hilario. He was the executive chef at Community Table in New Preston, and in January he was named a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Northeast. He bought one of the smallest, most idiosyncratic dining rooms in the state and kept nearly all of its rules. The one real change is a scaled-down, half-price menu on Tuesdays. That happens to be the night two of the kitchens he used to cook in are closed.
The format Birster and Cilona built is still in place
The original R.S.V.P. ran on a few rules set by two people. Guy Birster was born in Alise-Sainte-Reine, near Dijon, and started training as a chef at 17. Charles Cilona grew up in Chicago and worked in restaurants between acting jobs. The couple met in California in 1990, moved east in 2005 and opened a bistro in West Cornwall. R.S.V.P. followed five years later.
The rules were a chef's choice, prix fixe dinner of six courses, no substitutions, BYOB, and fewer than 20 seats, with Birster cooking in plain view. Cilona called every guest before the meal to confirm the table and explain how the evening would go. He told the Cornwall Chronicle that the place felt like opening night every week:
"We prepped all week, and then the curtain went up on Friday night. We even had an intermission!"
A New York Times review once ran under the headline "Regulars Say R.S.V.P. Does Everything Wrong Except for the Food," a nod to the mismatched tables and chairs and a room that looked assembled from earlier ventures. The last meal was served in December 2025. By then Cilona was approaching 89 and Birster was 78.
Hilario told CT Bites he kept the name to honor the founders, along with the tasting menu and BYOB. The dinner-party idea carried over as well. "I want it to feel like you came to a dinner party," he said. The pre-dinner contact also survives in a new form. After you request a table, Hilario emails to ask about allergies and dislikes, and the Lakeville Journal reports he can cook around almost any restriction.
What changed inside the format
The new version mostly differs in its details.
| Birster and Cilona's R.S.V.P. | Hilario's R.S.V.P., fall 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Courses | Six, chef's choice | About eight: two small plates, four mains, a palate cleanser, a dessert |
| Price | Not reported | $180 per person |
| Seats | Fewer than 20 | 16, with a few more once patio tables are added |
| Cooking | French | Mexican heritage with French and Japanese technique, built on local produce |
| Menu changes | Prepped all week for the weekend | Changes "almost weekly" |
| Booking | Cilona called each guest | Online form, then the restaurant contacts you |
| Bottles | BYOB | BYOB |
The room is cleaner but still sits on the old floor. It now has a minimalist terracotta look and is set with Hilario's own collection of dishware, vintage cocktail glasses and antiques. The Adventurist reports two seatings a night.
The opening menus show where the cooking has gone. Hilario served a black bass aguachile with ground cherries, serrano chiles and wood sorrel picked outside the restaurant. He also made his own version of chawanmushi with wild black trumpet mushrooms and potatoes, and wild king salmon with summer squash and lemongrass beurre blanc. Dessert might be a tamalito, a small meatless tamale, with caramel, salted plums, plums steeped in their own liquid with hibiscus, and buttermilk ice cream. "Desserts will be more savory, because to me, salt is everything," he told CT Bites.
The staff is very small. Hilario told CT Bites that, for now, he, Hannah Curran and Michelle Gaibor handle all the cooking, dishwashing and serving.
A short drive from Kent to New Preston to Railroad Street
Hilario was born in Guerrero, Mexico, and grew up in Florida. He came to Connecticut after cooking in New York, where he credits Idan Elkon at Shoji, a sushi restaurant in Tribeca, with shaping what he likes to cook. His New York résumé also includes Chumley's and The Musket Room, which holds a Michelin star. When Covid hit, he moved to Connecticut and cooked at Swyft, the farm-to-table tavern in Kent. While there, he designed a nine-course tasting menu for Ore Hill, the dining room upstairs. He then became executive chef at Community Table in New Preston. With a menu he designed, Community Table won both 2025 Connecticut Restaurant of the Year and 2025 Litchfield County Restaurant of the Year at the CRAZIES.
He announced the move on April 3, 2026. In the post he thanked Community Table's guests, farmers, team and the Anderson family "for the opportunity to grow, create, lead and to leave my mark." All three of his earlier kitchens are still open and run by other chefs. At Community Table, the website currently lists Marco A. Moreira as interim chef. A Gather55 feature from earlier this year also named Dylan Goff as sous chef. Its posted menu is labeled "This Week's Menu" and changes with the seasons. At Ore Hill, Ryan Carbone has been chef since August 2024. As of this spring he served prix-fixe and chef's-tasting menus on Friday and Saturday nights.
So within a short drive of each other, the Northwest Corner now has three tasting-menu rooms that Hilario worked in at different stages of his career. Each is now led by a different chef, and none of them closed during the handoff.
Tuesday, when two of the others are closed
Tuesday is where the new R.S.V.P. differs most from the old one, and the reason shows up when you put the three kitchens' weekly schedules side by side. Here is what each currently publishes:
- Community Table, New Preston: open Sunday, Monday and Thursday from 4:30 to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. Closed Tuesday and Wednesday.
- Swyft, Kent: dinner Wednesday through Sunday, lunch Thursday and Friday, brunch Saturday and Sunday. Closed Monday and Tuesday, according to hours posted in June.
- Ore Hill, Kent: prix-fixe and chef's-tasting menus on Friday and Saturday, as reported in April.
- R.S.V.P., West Cornwall: a shorter, half-price tasting menu on Tuesday, which Hilario describes as an industry night. The full menu runs on the other service nights.
The Adventurist describes the Tuesday menu as three courses at half the $180 price, which comes to about $90 a person before whatever bottle you bring. Hilario told CT Bites he wants Tuesday to be friendly to restaurant workers, with a more relaxed menu. It is the night cooks and servers from the other two kitchens are off. It is also the least expensive way for anyone to try the new menu.
The reports differ on R.S.V.P.'s other nights. CT Bites lists service Tuesday through Saturday. The Lakeville Journal says the full menu runs Wednesday through Sunday. Before you plan a weekend dinner around it, check the calendar at rsvpdining.com. Tuesday is the one night every report agrees on.
Getting a seat, in order
With 16 seats and a staff of three, small details matter. Here is the process as reported:
- Request a table through the online form at rsvpdining.com. The restaurant gets back to you.
- Answer Hilario's email about allergies and dislikes. After that, there are no decisions left to make at the table.
- Choose a bottle once you know the season. Over the summer, Hilario said the seafood- and produce-heavy menu suited whites or rosés, but he won't stop you from bringing "your heavy red."
- Expect something different on your next visit. Hilario says the menu "will change almost weekly."
The restaurant's address is 7 Railroad Street, West Cornwall. In late August, before the public opening, Hilario hosted soft openings for friends, family and neighbors in town as a thank-you. He has said he wants R.S.V.P. to be a place where guests learn where their food comes from, and he plans to build that around relationships with local farmers. Birster and Cilona ran this 16-seat room for two decades. A chef who has cooked his way through the area's best-known kitchens is now running it as his own.
The Northwest Corner's character comes from places like R.S.V.P., where a long-running local institution passes to someone who already knows the area. The Legacy Team follows these changes in Cornwall, Kent and Washington because a town's dinner table is part of what makes it home. If you'd like a candid conversation about life in the Litchfield Hills, we're glad to help. Get Expert Guidance.