Near the beginning of June, Dallas — no, all of Texas — lost a restaurant that was singular among its peers. The story of why Restaurant Beatrice closed is one of those cruel twists of fate that the universe can sometimes deal us, and for me, it is the end of the life cycle of the first restaurant I championed as a food writer, from opening to closing. For me, it has been a frustrating journey.
While I was in the process of interviewing for a job as the editor of Eater Dallas in the spring of 2022, I was freelancing for the site and got an assignment to write about a new Dallas restaurant. I didn’t know the owners, because I didn’t know anyone. I’d built my career in music writing for the past 15 years, but I was brand new to food writing. That assignment was my first time writing an opening profile of a restaurant. I was given about 600 words to sum the place up. I’d end up writing thousands more words about it between that April and when the restaurant closed in June 2026.
Restaurant Beatrice was a Cajun and Creole restaurant from chef Michelle Carpenter, who’d run Zen Sushi in the Bishop Arts since 2007. Carpenter honored the Japanese side of her heritage for decades, studying to become an itamae between stints in San Diego and San Antonio, before making a name for herself at places like the legendary Mr. Sushi and Yamaguchi in Dallas, as executive chef at the latter. Before that, she. She was known for mixing Southwestern flavors, like jalapeño and citrus, with sushi before it was a trend. Her bonafides among sushi lovers were cemented.