Cafe Beatrice — Restaurant in Cambridge

We've been to Beatrice twice now and it's been honestly meh. To disclaim, we've only tried the breakfast menu so far:

The first thing we tried here were egg sandwiches. I got the rapini/mushroom/muenster and my husband got the pastrami salmon/tomato/avocado. The rolls for the sandwiches are really great, but they weren't sliced well so I had a huge issue with my sandwich falling apart. Both sandwiches were honestly sort of bland and could really have benefitted from a little salt+pepper at the least. The vegetables on mine were still really watery and the whole thing was sliding and falling apart; it was pretty unenjoyable to eat. The salmon one was fine, but you can get a far better one at Mamelah's for a similar price. Another issue was that we both felt the sandwiches were too large (they are very generously-sized) as we were bored of eating them about 2/3rds of the way through. For the money, it's a lot of sandwich, but I'd much rather have a smaller sandwich that has enjoyable and well-balanced flavors. That's not to say these sandwiches were bad, they were just a little disappointing.

We also got the hazelnut sticky bun and while we both enjoyed it's components, we wouldn't call it a bun. The pastry is this awesome flaky, crispy pastry, and the hazelnut caramel is great, but for me they didn't really go together. The caramel topping would have been better on a fluffy risen dough, and that flaky pastry (seriously an awesome flake) would have done really well with a berry jam and maybe some kind of cheese custard? But that's me.

Anyway, we did decide to try Beatrice again since they just opened and we live right there. This time we got a bagel and the breakfast brioche and a kouign Aman. The bagel is "locally made", so I presume they didn't make it (which is fine). Since the have an option to have it not toasted, but no option for toasted, I assumed it came toasted by default. It did not. The charred onion cream cheese was very good, not too heavy on the onion, just enough to give it a really enjoyable flavor. The breakfast brioche was again, just okay. The tomato jam was WAY too sweet and unbalanced. The pastry itself was well done. The egg was a little weird, and seemed almost underdone even for a jammy egg.

The kouign aman is really great. Whoever is making the actual pastries at Beatrice is pretty on-point, but we've been put off by the flavor pairings and other cooking being done.

Anyway, will we go there again? Probably for a pastry. But if I didn't live around CX, I wouldn't go out of my way...

The coffee: I tried the cold brew. There is no station to get sugar or other fixings for your drink (this is totally OK by the way, just an FYI so you know to ask the cashier beforehand!) The coffee however was average, and look, i’m not a penny pincher by any means, but the size of the LARGE cold brew was maybe 12 oz WITH ice. I see they’ve been inspired by Tatte, who also deserves backlash for their sizing. If i’m tired in the morning, the 12 oz won’t cut it, i would actually need two of these or a red eye to really wake up. Not to mention it was $5 (same pricing as their competitor and clear inspo, Tatte). The staff there isn’t great or particularly professional, at least not what it should be for these prices and the ambience they are trying to set here.

The food: My partner and I both ordered breakfast sandwiches. These were really legit, I won’t lie. The melted cheese reminded me of raclette, and the everything bagel was fantastic. I would say my Bacon, Egg, and cheese was well worth the $8. I’m a little annoyed that my partner, who is vegetarian, didn’t have a lot of options to put on her sandwich, and was left with just egg and cheese. Honestly this would be okay if not for the fact that her sandwich was the same price as mine, and for what she got, definitely NOT worth $8. As a suggestion, it would make more sense to have a base price for the egg + cheese sandwich, and then an additional charge ($2-3) for the added meat, etc. Just didn’t feel right paying the same, but for explicitly less.

Overall: I felt like the service I got was somewhat on par with Dunkin Donuts, and the space was a little cramped. The cold brew was around Starbucks level, and the sizing for their large was a small everywhere else on earth besides Tatte. The breakfast sandwiches were great, but the price structure could use some work to make it more fair for those wanting a more basic sandwich. This breakfast cost me $30 + tip and I wouldn’t consider paying over $20-22 for this. As someone who lives in Cambridge Crossing and really loves coffee (source: was a barista at a nicer spot for 5+ years), I can’t recommend Cafe Beatrice beyond getting food for takeaway. I will be coming back to try their pastries and compare to Tatte...

Really fabulous pastries here, perfect almond bun thing, fruit bun and an awesome kouign amann. Our lattes were great too! The building and space is absolutely beautiful (and you do pay for it a bit - but it is really worth it). Really looking forward to coming back to try everything else.

Update: we’ve been back many times since, always perfect and everything we’ve tried has met our first impression or been even better.

Update 5/15/2022: I have to take away a star for a few reasons. 1) their pastries have gone too far to the point that you can barely stomach the amount of sugar in any one. The kouign ammann is still excellent, but most of the new additions lately have not been an improvement. 2) for the bagel in the morning they offer avocado, but this has at some point switched to an avocado shmear that tastes like something you’d get at dunkin. 3) we tried lunch and honestly it is a rip-off. $14 for the thai noodle bowl which is quite literally just soba noodles some cabbage and some cucumbers, and not particularly good. The cobb was fine but also flatly too expensive for...