How Cheetie Kumar shook off pandemic isolation to make one of Raleigh's brightest restaurants
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Cheetie Kumar, right, and Paul Siler, the owners of Ajja. Photo: Courtesy of Baxter Miller
For two years, all Cheetie Kumar could think about was keeping her acclaimed downtown Raleigh restaurant Garland alive — an effort that left her burnt out and physically exhausted.
- But by 2022, after getting the restaurant "back to health," she and her husband and business partner Paul Siler decided to close it anyways.
"I really wanted something different," Kumar told Axios, saying she had stopped "loving" the restaurant and was "isolated" in its walls. "I had a [new] feeling I was chasing."
- That feeling culminated in Ajja — a culinary exploration of flavors from around the Mediterranean and Near East — and which Axios Raleigh has named best restaurant of 2024.
Why it matters: Ajja, pronounced with a hard J, in just over a year has cemented itself as a gathering place, delighting Triangle eaters with its flavor-packed bites and seasonally rotating menu.
Zoom in: Located in the leafy Five Points neighborhood, Ajja stands in contrast to downtown, where Garland was — and is perhaps an antidote to how Kumar felt during the pandemic.
- Ajja is bright, with a sweeping patio; Garland had a darker mood with exclusively interior seating. Garland's menu had many complicated dishes; Ajja embraces simplicity.
What to expect: The menu is typically around 15 to 25 items, with a mixture of dips and spreads, fresh vegetables and grilled skewers.
- Dishes draw from the culinary traditions of places like Palestine, Pakistan, Turkey, Greece and other regions of the Near East. The wine list highlights emerging and lesser-known regions, like Lebanon and Croatia.
- The temperatures of the dishes vary with the season, so that they feel refreshing on a humid July night or comforting on a chill evening in October.
Kumar said Ajja has really focused on "deconstructing dishes to their elements" and focusing on some core ingredients, like the chili paste Harissa or Labneh yogurt.
- "We have like five or six [ingredients] we kind of lean into — and those might rotate depending on the season," she said. "But it really helps us connect everything, so it's not like creating something completely new every single time."
So far diners have embraced the creativity within those confines as well as a restaurant that is still growing, both physically (it added a dining room since it opened) and with how it serves its food.
- "It's a personal space for all of us, and I think people can sense that," Kumar said, noting the response to Ajja makes her emotional. "And in a city that's growing so quickly, I'm just really grateful to have the opportunity to make something that's really not cookie cutter."