Jhonny Reyes used to look at the former Marco’s Supper Club and The Innkeeper space in Belltown with envy.

“I’ve always had my eye on this place,” Reyes says, while telling the story of how his restaurant, Lenox, polymorphed from popup to food truck to brick-and-mortar. “I helped open The Innkeeper, actually. And then it was Jerk Shack. So, this is kind of the Caribbean spot in Seattle.”

Chef Jhonny Reyes has long wanted to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

Photography by Andrea Coan

Alongside the building’s culinary pedigree, he cites its leafy, secluded patio — a rarity for the neighborhood and the fact that it’s a detached stand-alone building, when he decided that this must be the place.

One year after opening his Nuyorican restaurant, Lenox, at Second Avenue and Wall Street in Belltown, Reyes says it looks just like the sketches he and his wife, Sarah Fox, put together, an accomplishment he calls “amazing.” After scoring his dream location, Reyes assembled a dream team to help manage it, comprising old pals he’s worked with across his decades-long career in the Seattle restaurant industry. He’s brought in John Fry to manage the bar, who previously did the same at the well-hailed Rumba. Brian Mar, former culinary director at Saint Bread, is the operations manager.

Reyes always envisioned owning his own full-service restaurant long before Lenox’s pop-up and food truck phases. He worked in the kitchens of myriad local fine-dining spots, such as Roux and Art of the Table. He cites all these gigs as a substitution for college that trained him for his current role as chef-owner. “I never went to culinary school,” Reyes says, “so my whole thing was to find places that do something really, really well, and then stay there for a year and learn as much as I could.”

This approach taught him enough to snag a slot on The Food Network’s Chopped in 2022, where he walked away with the crown. Doing this also landed him at legendary Madison Park bistro Luc, where he spent four years working for highly decorated Chef Thierry Rautureau, who died in 2023. With Lenox, alongside celebrating the Afro-Caribbean recipes he learned from his parents and grandparents, Reyes is aiming to implement all of the things he learned from Rautureau and great chefs like him.

Rautureau in particular was a major influence. They were, Reyes recalls, “really tight.” “I was very sad that he didn’t get to experience (Lenox) before his passing,” he says. “It’s funny, because one of my cooks the other day was saying, ‘Yeah, I guess we’re a French-style kitchen,’ because everything here comes down to sauces and stocks and bases. That’s all Thierry.”

The inspiration for both the food and drinks at Lenox comes from owner/chef Jhonny Reyes’ culture and upbringing.

Photography by Andrea Coan

With a full staff and full-service kitchen, Reyes has been able to craft and serve the more elaborate dishes and diverse menus that he couldn’t have pulled off in a truck. For example, the magnificent lechon, a spiral of crackly butterflied pork belly served in a lake of yellow coco greens with seasoned rice, pigeon peas and Haitian-style pikliz, is a menu star — and a highly photogenic one. See also the pescado crujiente, a heartbreakingly perfect halibut fillet on a bed of coconut-imbued barley, braised leeks, and roasted mushrooms. The mushrooms and barley create somewhat of a risotto effect, except tropical, thanks to a reduction of coconut milk and Malta India, a non-alcoholic malt beverage from Puerto Rico.

Reyes’ utterly distinct take on tres hermanas is similarly astounding. It’s a Technicolor jumble of roasted corn, haricots verts, and summer squash that curves around a lake of creamy Green Goddess dressing, studded with pickled cherries and sprinkled with farmer’s cheese, pickled onions and peppers, fresh herbs and microgreens. It sounds exotic, and it is. It rivals even the entrees for tastiest dish on the list.

It’s hard to find an item on this menu that isn’t a show-stopper. Reyes is also particularly proud of the alcapurria, a cassava-and-plantain fritter commonly eaten in Puerto Rico, although Lenox’s version is filled with Cuban picadillo beef.

While Lenox is a love letter to his Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Jamaican heritage, by way of Spanish Harlem, Reyes was a child of Seattle. When his dad moved to the area for a tech job, 5-year-old Reyes came along, though he frequently traveled back to New York City to see his mom and extended family. Although he’s never lived in New York as an adult, he still goes there often, so he’s treating the restaurant as more of an homage to his family’s food culture, not a personal biography per se.

“And it’s actually me reconnecting with my roots and my culture,” Reyes goes on, “because some of that got lost in translation when we moved over here. With this restaurant, even my dad and my sisters are getting prouder and prouder of their own heritage. It makes me proud too.”

He’s been in the restaurant industry nearly as long as he’s lived in Seattle. As a Franklin High School student — and later Center School alum — living in Seward Park, he got his start as a dishwasher at nearby Pizzuto’s. He’s lived in just about every Seattle neighborhood in town, including Belltown.

Reyes is stoked to be back in the neighborhood, and in light of Lenox’s unexpected (to him, at least) success, he’s taking care to be a part of the fabric of the community, rather than a nuclear self-contained business. “I’m just hoping that the amount of business that we’re doing is also helping the businesses around us. You know what I’m saying? I really want to make sure that, like, people are going out to get the drinks nearby after they come here.”

He also hopes that his still-new neighbors will pop in at Lenox and say hi. “We’re trying to be friends with everybody,” Reyes says. “That’s the dream.”