‘Top Chef’ Isaac Toups to Close Central City Restaurant After Three Years [Updated]

Cajun culinary mastermind Isaac Toups will close Toups South next month, three years after he and his beloved Toups Meatery team expanded with the restaurant inside Central City’s Southern Food & Beverage Museum.

Toups and his wife and business partner Amanda confirmed the impending closure to Eater on Thursday, December 26, with a statement that read in part, “we have an amazing relationship with the Southern Food & Beverage Museum and our partnership with them has been wonderful. In light of recent developments — a second cookbook in the works, a product line, a growing workload in television and the ongoing success of Toups Meatery — it became an operational necessity.”

The couple closed the statement by saying they “will be sharing exciting news soon regarding our new endeavors.”

Toups is a native of Rayne, Louisiana and opened his first restaurant, the Cajun country-oriented Toups Meatery, in New Orleans in 2012. He opened Toups South in the Southern Food and Beverage Museum (SoFab) in October 2016, the same year he appeared on season 13 of Top Chef (and won fan favorite). Toups released a Cajun cookbook last year, called Chasing the Gator: Isaac Toups and the New Cajun Cooking.

SoFab executive director Brent Rosen shared plans for the future of the restaurant with Eater on Friday, December 27, saying that the museum will expand into the former Toups South space “with a new Louisiana Kitchen and Gallery as well as a Museum of the American Cocktail Bar. In the Louisiana Kitchen, we will host three weekly hands-on cooking classes, fundraising dinners, and other pop-up experiences throughout the year,” adding that the area will undergo minor construction in 2020.

A spokesperson for Toups South told Eater that while the last day of service has not been determined, the restaurant will close sometime at the end of the month.

Update: December 28, 2019: This article has been updated to include comments from Brent Rosen, the executive director of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, and with updated information on the date of closure.

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