Eats Beat 
Eats Beat: Duce is replaced, but some dishes and the patio remain
Previous Columns
Eats Beat
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Ridglea’s restaurants are changing.
After a long struggle, Duce is out. Fuego is in.
Fuego is the restaurant and bar that replaces Duce, the "modern steakhouse" with the ill-advised name that was never as big a hit as Chef Tim Love’s other restaurants.
A Chicago chef, Efrain Benitez, unveiled the Fuego menu and changed the signs last week after testing a new menu for a few days under the old banner.
You might recognize a few menu items, such as the West Side Chicken. But Benitez is also serving some new dishes, like a "salmon Fuego," blackened and topped with crab meat. A flounder dish is served with hollandaise over sweet potato hash.
So far, the tapas menu and bar service seem to be ahead of the dinner service. The appetizer menu offers crab cakes, scallops and an excellent bacon-blue cheese salad. But the New York strip "Fuego" was a letdown.
Wisely, Benitez did not change the restaurant’s destination patio.
Fuego is open weekdays for lunch and Tuesdays through Saturdays for dinner at 6333 Camp Bowie Blvd.; 817-377-4400.
Just down the street, one of the oldest restaurants in Ridglea is getting a new look.
Aventino’s Ristorante, the landmark Italian restaurant on Winthrop Avenue, is expanding and will be closed until about Oct. 1.
The Paez family opened Aventino’s 26 years ago. In the original dining room, bowls of pasta were served beneath wagon-wheel chandeliers.
"It’s time to keep up with the neighbors," owner Al Paez said, perhaps referring to popular Fortuna Italian Restaurant nearby.
Watch for Aventino’s reopening at 3206 Winthrop Ave.
It’s still Hatch green chile season, so watch for specials such as a pumpkin-seed-green-chile chicken at the Chuy’s restaurant in Dallas, Hatch chiles rellenos at Blue Mesa Grill and green-chile cheeseburgers on weekend nights at Central Market.
