There are restaurants you go to for the food, and restaurants you go to for the experience. Rolando's Nuevo Latino Restaurante, housed in a building that has stood on N A Street since the 1850s, offers both — but it is the experience that keeps Fort Smith coming back for special occasions, and it is the experience that earns it a singular place in the city's dining culture.
Rolando himself, a native of Ecuador who built the restaurant with partner Sherri Cuzco, did something remarkable with the crumbling plaster of this historic building: he carved it. Literally. The murals covering the walls are his handiwork — intricate, colorful, deeply personal — and they transform what might have been another downtown dining room into something you have to see to believe. The golden walls add warmth that is literally built into the architecture. You feel you are eating inside an artwork, because you are.
The menu draws from Cuban and Ecuadorian tradition with a Southern hospitality overlay. Creamy guacamole to start. Traditional Ecuadorian chicken soup that carries the comfort of a recipe passed down through generations. Tilapia with capers that is lighter than you expect and more complex than it sounds. Cuban mojo-marinated chicken that justifies every mile of the journey. The banana dessert — Heaven in a Bowl — is not a metaphor. It is exactly what the name promises. Locations in Fayetteville and Hot Springs have followed the original Fort Smith institution, but the N A Street address remains where the story began.