Rice Paper in the Hotel San Carlos Has Closed

The Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Phoenix is the second location to close.

May 17, 2017

Image: Hotel San Carlos, formerly home to Rice Paper restaurant.

Hotel San Carlos, formerly home to Rice Paper restaurant. Phoenix New Times

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Rice Paper in the Hotel San Carlos closed this week, marking the end (at least for now) of the Rice Paper saga.

The restaurant's original location on Seventh Street in the Coronado neighborhood was housed in a renovated bungalow, and became a local favorite for upscale Vietnamese food and cocktails when it opened in 2011. It was the second of the Tran sisters' restaurants, the first of which was Saigon Kitchen, a traditional Vietnamese restaurant in Surprise.

The pair expanded their offerings in 2012 with the opening of Bonjour Vietnam in the Hotel San Carlos, where it remained in operation from 2012 until 2014, when it was replaced by a second branch of Rice Paper.

Last year, the original branch of Rice Paper shuttered and this week the Hotel San Carlos location has followed suit. The Tran sisters' Saigon Kitchen and Slanted Rice remain open.

Felicia Campbell has written about food, culture, and cars for digital and print publications all over the world and is the author of The Food of Oman: Recipes and Stories from the Gateway to Arabia (Andrews McMeel, 2015). Her husband learned quickly that she’d rather get a bag of avocados than a bouquet of roses.

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