another heights shutter
Heights Vietnamese restaurant lauded for inventive fare set to shutter
Dinette will close on Sunday.
An innovative Vietnamese restaurant will soon serve its last meals. Dinette announced it will close after service on Sunday, February 4.
Located in the Heights, Dinette opened in 2022 to some acclaim, including a nomination for Best New Restaurant in the 2023 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards. Opening chef Cole Hoang crafted a menu of North Vietnamese-inspired dishes that also drew on his experiences working for James Beard Award finalist Christine Ha at both The Blind Goat and Xin Chao. It included updated takes on Vietnamese staples such as egg rolls, banh xeo, and bo luc lac.
Last year, the restaurant added a bakery serving sweet and savory Vietnamese pastries, which its also closing.
Owners Raymond Chan and Jason Andaya also operate Hando and Kanpai Club, the sushi hand roll concept and cocktail bar with locations in the Heights and Spring Branch. They plan to replace with Dinette with something more similar to those establishments. Details on the new restaurant will be released at a later date.
“We recognized a need to focus on growing the Hando and Kanpai Club brands, and we believe that closing Dinette will help us accomplish our expansion goals,” Andaya said in a response to CultureMap’s request for comment about the decision to close Dinette. “That being said, there are plans to reconcept the Shepherd Row space into something that feels like an organic progression, building on what people already love about Hando and Kanpai Club.”
“Despite today’s announcement and the closing of this chapter, we are extremely proud of all that we have accomplished with Dinette, and we look forward to developing a new concept to open in the current space,” Chan added in a statement. “We invite everyone to come in and enjoy their favorite meals one last time this week.”
Although Dinette’s time is coming to an end, the Heights and its nearby neighborhoods offer a number of options for contemporary Vietnamese cuisine. They include Moon Rabbit, Les Ba’get, and Xin Chao
.
