Petra and the Beast served its last dinners at its original location this weekend, in preparation for its big summer move to a much larger, more modern restaurant space in Lakewood.
The new Petra, in the location formerly occupied by Lakewood Smokehouse, will offer a cocktail program, and will enjoy the benefit of the old barbecue joint’s smokers. But chef-owner Misti Norris says that the experience won’t change much. She even has an informal name for it: “Ultra Petra.”
“We’ll be doing all these things that we don’t have the ability to do here,” Norris says, comparing the new location to the old. “We have more equipment, more space, more staff, more everything. Pretty much anything that comes to our minds, anything seasonally we get excited, we have more to work with.”
She estimates that the next version of Petra may be open in a month, in early August. Over the course of July, kitchen equipment and banquettes will arrive, and the crew will box up and move the old space’s eclectic decorations, including jarred preserves and pickles, animal skulls, and Norris’ own paintings.
At the new Petra, there will be space for a larger bread-baking program. M&M custom rotisserie smokers will help cooks prepare bigger cuts of meat. And if you thought the old Petra’s charcuterie boards were a feast, get excited: there’s now room to cure and hang many more meats.
“It excites me to be able to do all the larger format stuff,” Norris says. “It will also allow us to purchase more from our farms, and customize more because we’re buying a fair amount for our products. Now [pre-move], we’re so small, we only need to feed 30 people, but if we need 300 pounds of this, it makes it easier for them to think about for processing.”
Meanwhile, Petra’s beverage team is devising a cocktail menu that reflects the restaurant’s ultra-seasonal, ultra-local, preserve-everything mentality. Expect foraged and wild ingredients, just like in the restaurant’s food. The cocktails will hopefully fit right into Petra’s philosophy, but they’re still a big change. Norris has never had to create a drink menu before. She ran the kitchen at Small Brewpub, but it had its own brewers. The original Petra was BYOB, and the Exchange Hall handled cocktails for pop-up restaurant Stepchild.
“We’ve talked about using brines, aminos, misos, all these things that we’ve made,” Norris says. “We have ways of making shrubs and vinegars, which we are going to incorporate into our bar program.” There will be a few local beers, too. The wine program is in more of a to-be-determined state, with her team busily tasting possibilities.
The new Petra and the Beast will serve a la carte dinners and, on Friday and Saturday nights, tasting menus in the private dining room with optional drink pairings. (For the first time, they’ll be able to accommodate tastings and regular dinners at the same time.) Early in the week, Norris’ crew hopes to increase production of its Take Home the Beast takeout meals, bountiful feasts that began in the pandemic era.
When the kitchen has settled into a groove, Petra also has ambitions to reimagine the most notorious meal service of all: brunch.
“I’m beyond excited about this,” Norris says. “Brunch has become such a stigma. It’s certain things: how do you want your eggs? Poached, fried, over easy—on our side, it makes it such a taxing thing to cook. We’re going to try to eliminate that. We are all very excited to see a Petra style of brunch.”
I wasn’t able to glean details—right now her team is sorting through ideas—but expect a brunch like none other in Dallas.
The brunch, cocktails, and gleaming new space all represent departures for this five-year-old restaurant. Many of us have grown accustomed to the homey, historic building in which Petra operated until last week, including its sputtering air conditioning and enigmatic exterior. Over the course of five years, the original Petra went from an experimental pop-up—meant for a six-month trial lease—to a creative-dining mainstay, BYOB destination, and pandemic-era takeout champion.
It’s easy to wonder if success will change this restaurant’s underdog ethos. But, in Norris’ telling, the move just enables her crew to keep doing what it does—only more so, and with greater ability. As the new team learns its kitchen and develops chemistry, she is excited to see where “Ultra Petra” will be six months or a year from now.
“We’ve set who we are,” she says. “We’ve set our reputation, we’ve set our style. In my mind it’s only going to get so much better.”
Petra and the Beast plans to open in August, 1901 Abrams Rd.
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