Cheetie Kumar's Ajja has quickly become one of Raleigh's favorite restaurants

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 named its best restaurant of 2024.

Why it matters: Ajja, which is pronounced with a hard J and is now more than a year old , has quickly cemented itself as a gathering place and eating destination in Raleigh's Five Points, delighting eaters with its flavor-packed bites and its seasonally rotating menu.

Zoom in: Ajja, located in the leafy Five Points neighborhood, stands in somewhat of a 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 and was all inside. Garland's menu had many complicated dishes, while Ajja was an attempt to simplify.

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 jump from traditions from places like Palestine, Pakistan, Turkey or Greece and other places from the Near East. The wine list celebrates less trafficked but growing regions, like Lebanon or 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."