Fort Worth restaurant Duce becomes “Fuego”

by Teresa Gubbins

Fort Worth restaurant Duce, which was sold by founder chef-owner Tim Love in April to Chicago chef Efrain Benitez, has completed its transformation and is now called Fuego.

"[Efrain] wanted to drop any affiliation with the previous owner, but when you change the name, you need a new liquor license, new this, new that, and he was getting the money together," said a spokeswoman at the restaurant. "We were waiting for licensing to come through. But we got all the permits at the beginning of this month and the temporary sign went up Wednesday, so we're having a soft opening under new name."

In celebration of the new entity, Benitez has added a few items including queso Fuego, with cheese, ground beef, jalapenos, and so on, prepared and ignited tableside; and a create-your-own pizza with toppings such as barbecue chicken, shrimp pesto, sausage, mozzarella or goat cheese, sundried tomatoes, and onion.

Laura Seewoester contributed to this story.