Lenox feels like a trip to the beach, minus the saltwater breeze—like Miami, but linen-shirt Miami, not sequined-minidress Miami. The palm-print wallpaper, rattan light fixtures, and rum-soaked cocktail list transport diners straight to La Placita, the party-hearty Puerto Rico neighborhood which gives its name to a fiery tropical fruit drink on the bar menu.

Yellow flower petals, pink pickled onions, and fresh white farmers cheese dance on top of the dishes. An island of plantains, mashed and seasoned into mofongo swims in an ocean of rich red shrimp criolla broth, a deliberate reminder of the influence of West African culinary traditions on Puerto Rico’s cuisine, and of chef-owner Jhonny Reyes’ intentional, inclusive outlook on Afro-Latino cuisine. A delicate cherry tomato, pickled in Champagne vinegar and fished from the chimichurri washing over my bistec encebollado, pops with a bright acidity.

Serving a bravely ambitious take on a cuisine the city mostly lacks, the Belltown restaurant seems rather un-Seattle in many ways. But don’t let the melodious chirping of coquí frogs playing in the bathrooms fool you into thinking you’ve stepped into Viejo San Juan. Reyes is very clear that he’s not here to recreate anybody’s abuela’s cooking. He describes his cooking as Nuyorican—stemming from the diaspora that brought Caribbean cuisine to Spanish Harlem, where Lenox, the avenue, brims with adobo and sazón.

At Lenox, the restaurant, Reyes makes his versions of those dual building blocks of Puerto Rican cuisine from scratch.  “Adobo is our everything spice,” he says of the traditional garlic, oregano, turmeric, and black pepper seasoning. “It’s what makes Puerto Rican food Puerto Rican.” It works in tandem with the sazón, in which Reyes uses annatto and paprika in place of dyes and amps up the earthy tones with cloves and allspice. That base allows Reyes to use his experience at a CVS receipt–worthy list of Seattle’s top restaurants to experiment without losing the essential flavors of his heritage.

Lenox leans hard on the idea that where something comes from shapes it, but does not set it in stone. Dishes pick up ingredients as they travel with the diaspora from the Gulf of Guinea to an island in the Caribbean to a neighborhood on the East River, and then onto Seattle. With its innovative takes on Nuyorican cuisine and laid-back vibes, Lenox brings Seattle’s restaurant scene an exhilarating breath of fresh sea air.

That begins with impressively attentive service. When I ask for help choosing between two drinks on my first visit, the server offers to bring me a sample of the Clarified Piña Colada, freeing me up to order the earthy Coquí-nut Mojito. The cocktail program is designed by John Fry, who brings immense rum experience from a half-decade at Rumba. By the time my friend arrives, I giggle at how settled I am on the bouncy, cushioned chair with two drinks in front of me. (Comfortable seating is another refreshingly trend-bucking trait of Lenox.) As she settles into the pale pink cushions of the banquette, the server brings her a similar sample. Over the course of my meals there, I notice the telltale shot glass of clear liquid on the bar and landing at tables. I hear servers offer to make virgin drinks alcoholic and vice versa. As my friend nears the bottom of her drink, the server surreptitiously slides the cocktail menu over.

As difficult as picking a drink was, the short food menu made choosing dishes much easier. The trio of cold plates are light and salad-like. The Tres Hermanas honors the highlights of a summer harvest and Indigenous co-planting traditions with the warmth of roasted corn, squash, and green beans countered by a creamy Green Goddess dressing and pickled cherries. The small plates, all of which are practically big enough to be a meal on their own, hew heavier. The alcapurria stuffs Cuban-style picadillo into the classic Puerto Rican cassava and plantain fritter; the plate-size empanada spills over with Puerto Rican chicken stew. “We try to mix and match and create something that somebody can recognize through taste,” says Reyes. That frees them up to add a bit more visual razzle-dazzle to go with the pleasant aesthetics of the room, which was designed by Reyes’s wife, teacher Sarah Fox.

The undisputed star of Lenox comes from the four big plates: the Lechon, with its shatteringly crisp skin protecting the tender meat rolled inside. The process to turn pork belly into something so multitextured and magnificent sounds like a series of torture experiments. First, Reyes jacquards the skin, stabbing it with a metal poker to create holes through which moisture (the enemy of crispness) can escape. It receives a layer of salt cure and a holy trinity of Puerto Rican seasonings that gives the butterflied belly its flavor, each of which the restaurant makes in-house: adobo, sazón, and recaíto, a mix of bell pepper, onion, garlic, and culantro. As it roasts, the skin bubbles and crackles, crowning the meat with its crunch.

The inch-high slice of pork sits amid a pool of salsa verde, on a throne of arroz con gandules, the traditional Puerto Rican dish of rice and pigeon peas. Southern-style braised mustard greens get a Caribbean infusion with sazón-laced coconut potlikker, and the region expands with the onions on top, styled after Haitian pikliz. “That’s kind of like a culmination of everything that I’ve seen and done in my culinary career,” says Reyes.

His resume starts with the late Thierry Rautureau’s Luc and includes Art of the Table, Restaurant Roux, and a long stint at JuneBaby, the much-acclaimed restaurant from chef Edouardo Jordan. Reyes departed the latter after the Seattle Times published a scathing report on Jordan’s sexual misconduct. “It was definitely a very upsetting situation,” says Reyes, but he still looks at what he took away from his time there. “[It] was a really good opportunity to learn about what I’m doing now,” he says. “Which is cooking cultural food with intent.”

Lenox’s approach to Afro-Latino food clearly shares DNA with Jordan’s way of looking at Southern cuisine: the thoughtfulness behind each ingredient, the consideration of every step in both culinary and cultural contexts. Disappointingly, despite Reyes significant experience at JuneBaby, a restaurant that specialized in rice, Lenox does not share that obsession: the biggest misstep at Lenox came in the form of repeatedly clumpy, poorly cooked rice.

Serving the food of a diaspora is, by nature, a tricky venture, like piecing back together the shards of a dropped plate, its broken bits flung about the globe. Nostalgia rivals hunger as the best sauce, but it also tends to view foods through icy glasses that idealize a cuisine frozen in time. Reyes’s thoughtful cooking sidesteps the authenticity myth as it weaves together ingredients and techniques from around the Afro-Latino world, using explosive flavors and plenty of coconut to smooth over any cracks. It dares to step away from both the culinary traditions that inform it and the general sameness of so many new Seattle restaurants.