Restaurant Above Ben's Chili Bowl Opens With Small Plates and Half-Smoke-Infused Manhattans

About three months after the debut of their H Street NE outpost, the owners of Ben’s Chili Bowl have opened a separate upstairs restaurant with rooftop bar called Ten 01.

Diners won’t find much crossover between the two spaces. Ten 01 serves small plates and cocktails, although you will find a half-smoke (and shrimp) corn dog with a sweet onion batter on the menu. The half-smoke is also infused into bourbon for a Manhattan.

“[The owners] wanted something that wasn’t like Ben’s Next Door and definitely not another Chili Bowl,” says chef RL Boyd, who previously worked at Circa and briefly at Charlie Palmer Steak. “They just kind of told me to do what I do.”

Boyd and his sous chef, Quinton Mitchell, both hail from North Carolina, and their Southern roots have made their way into parts of the menu. Dishes include johnny cakes with pork belly; blackened tri-tip steak with potato sticks, and chimichurri mayo; and jerked salmon. Boyd says he got the jerk seasoning recipe for that last dish during a trip to Jamaica ten years ago: “I ate this guy’s jerk chicken every single day and I begged him for the recipe. And he finally gave it to me.”

There’s also plenty for vegetarians, including a whole grain risotto with roasted root vegetables, pickled beets, grilled scallion pesto, and pumpkin butter. Boyd says the small plate portions are somewhere between appetizers and entrees. Prices range from $6.50 to $14. The bar supplies a number of local beers as well as a prickly pear margarita.

For dessert, Boyd has created a cereal milk creme brûlée with Cap’n Crunch and marinated strawberries (see above). He was inspired by the cereal milk soft-serve at Momofuku Milk Bar.

Take a look at the full menu below.