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Written by Chloe Karis
Vietnam has no shortage of great food, but knowing where to look makes the difference between a good meal and an extraordinary one. From a hidden tea house in Hanoi where egg coffee has been made the same way since 1946, to a clifftop French mansion in Da Nang, here’s our city-by-city guide to the restaurants worth planning a trip around.
The best restaurants in Hanoi
Cau Go
Hanoi is full of restaurants overlooking Hoan Kiem Lake, but few do it with Cau Go‘s combination of altitude and substance. Ride the lift to the sixth or seventh floor and you’ll find a room with wide lake views and a menu rooted in Vietnamese regional cooking – deep-fried spring rolls done properly, and lẩu (hot pot) that’s worth ordering even if you’re not normally a hot pot person. Cau Go has appeared in the Michelin Guide multiple consecutive years as a Michelin Selected restaurant, which is the kind of recognition that tends to fill tables fast. Book ahead, and ask for a terrace seat.
Tam Vi
Hidden away in a vintage tea house off Nguyen Du Street, Tam Vi serves traditional Northern Vietnamese home-style dishes, like crab soup with malabar spinach or chả ốc (Vietnamese ham with periwinkle snails). Tam Vi has the distinction of being one of the cheapest Michelin-starred restaurants in the world.
Cafe Dinh
Enter this old-style café via a deep, narrow alleyway early enough, and you’ll be sipping coffee among the locals. With views of Hoan Kiem Lake and the Temple of the Jade Mountain, enjoy egg coffee (a Hanoi specialty) that the owner says remains unchanged since her father created the recipe in 1946.
Le Beaulieu
Operating since 1901, Le Beaulieu serves triumphantly delicious French haute cuisine inside Sofitel Legend Metropole. Classic French flavours with a focus on seasonality and sophistication shine through the menu; visit on Sunday for one of the city’s most lavish seafood buffet brunches.
Hibana by Koki
The only Japanese restaurant in Vietnam with a Michelin star, at Capella Hanoi’s 14-seat house of teppanyaki Hibana by Koki, affable chef Hiroshi Yamaguchi curates a menu with a decadent edge, with premium ingredients like abalone and uni (sea urchin) flown directly from Japan.
Quan An Ngon
Set in a French-inspired, two-storey villa with a pretty garden courtyard, Quan An Ngon serves food-court-style variety, with small dishes created using organic local ingredients and seafood. Hot from the open kitchen are sizzling pancakes, fresh rice paper rolls, bun cha and pho – if you’re after a broad taste of Vietnamese cuisine in the comfort of a restaurant setting, this is for you.
The best restaurants in Hoi An & Da Nang
Madam Khanh
Hoi An has no shortage of banh mi shops, but Madam Khanh’s is worth seeking out. A warm baguette packed with fresh herbs, marinated meats and a signature sauce has earned it a loyal following – including MasterChef Australia’s Gary Mehigan, who has called it a must-eat in Vietnam. Arrive early, expect to eat standing up, and don’t skip the pate.
Morning Glory Signature
At Morning Glory Signature, each contemporary Vietnamese dish is handpicked, closely personal and backed with high quality – and ultra-fragrant – local ingredients, including fresh chilli, coriander and lemongrass. With incredible views of Hoi An’s Japanese bridge, it’s a wonderful place to stop for a summer roll with shrimp and pork, or enjoy the mother’s comfort food section of the menu that’s full of hearty soups.
Brilliant Top Bar
In the heart of Danang, Brilliant Hotel’s bustling and vibrant rooftop Brilliant Top Bar offers sweeping views over Han River and the city. The bar’s menu serves unique Asian-European fusion dishes including BBQ pork ribs, lamb chops and a selection of wine and cocktails including the Mango Soul — with Gordon’s gin, mango puree, earl grey tea and lime.
Wafel | Belgian Waffle Bar
Authentic Belgian waffles are a rarity in Vietnam, but Da Nang’s Wafel’s freshly baked treats – made to order in a traditional cast iron – give even Europe a run for its money.
Thìa Gỗ Restaurant
Da Nang’s own answer to the neighbourhood Vietnamese restaurant question, Thìa Gỗ is a comfortable, reasonably priced spot near the city centre with an al fresco area and a menu built around central Vietnamese staples. The bánh xèo – crispy turmeric pancakes filled with prawns and bean sprouts – is among the best in the city, and the pho holds up against more celebrated versions elsewhere. It’s the kind of place you return to on the second or third evening when you want something reliable and good without the fanfare.
Com Nha Linh
Known for hearty, homely meals like their shrimp and gourd soup, and close to the popular My Khe Beach, the nostalgic Com Nha Linh offers many classics. Their Northern Vietnamese favourites include sweet and sour stir-fried squid and the delicious crab soup.
La Maison 1888
Da Nang’s first Michelin-starred restaurant sits at the top of the Son Tra Peninsula inside the InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort, about 30 minutes from the city centre – and the journey is part of the experience. The building was designed by American architect Bill Bensley as a recreation of a French Indochine colonial mansion, and it earned a place on Architectural Digest’s list of the most beautifully designed restaurants in the world before it ever received a star. The cooking is French in structure, Vietnamese in character: top-quality local ingredients treated with classical French technique. The wine list, overseen by sommelier Toan Nguyen – who took a dedicated wine course in Hanoi before joining the team – runs to more than 450 labels. The star arrived with the 2024 Michelin Guide and was retained in 2025.
The best restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City
Aii House Saigon
One of the newer restaurants to make a mark on the city’s fine dining circuit – honoured in Tatler’s Best 20 Restaurants in Vietnam 2025 list – Aii House Saigon has an open kitchen that makes standout contemporary Vietnamese cooking feel like a shared experience rather than a performance. The wagyu beef paired with a Hue-style noodle sauce is the dish to return to; the crab noodles are the other thing worth ordering. It’s the kind of restaurant that rewards going with a group and ordering widely.
The Monkey Gallery
This Japanese-inspired, gallery-like fine dining restaurant takes its name from its three founders, all born in the Year of the Monkey. Here, Vietnamese street food heritage meets French technique, and the open kitchen is restaurant’s beating heart; watch on as chefs fire up artfully presented dishes like sauteed shrimp with Nha Trang octopus, salmon roe and chilli sauce. Be sure to head downstairs to the Dessert Bar for its popular mango ice cream with semolina and coconut juice.
Yakiniku Yazawa Saigon
For top-shelf wagyu and a meticulously curated selection of over 70 wines, Yakiniku Yazawa Saigon is where you need to be. With outposts across Japan, Singapore, USA and Europe, this Japanese BBQ restaurant has already made a name for itself abroad – but remains an excellent night out in Saigon.
Man Moi
Man Moi has been a fixture in Ho Chi Minh City’s dining scene for well over a decade, and the garden setting – open, green, genuinely calm in a city that is rarely any of those things – is one of the better arguments for booking a table here. The cooking is Vietnamese home-style: braised pork, morning glory, rice. The surprise, if you haven’t been before, is the grilled eel sausage topped with chilli and fresh herbs, which sits happily alongside the simpler dishes and tends to disappear first.
Square One
Set within the handsome heritage Park Hyatt Saigon, this fine dining restaurant has a dual-cuisine concept that presents French gastronomy alongside Vietnamese flavours. The menu’s divided neatly according to your culinary preference; try scallops French-style (tartar presentation with green apple, soy, ginger and a seaweed cracker), or with a Vietnamese twist (a carpaccio with zucchini-mint cream, shallots and chives). Order a wagyu steak from the grill or seafood live from the tank, in the knowledge ingredients are sourced sustainably from local farmers, producers and fishermen. The glossy wood-and-brick space has multiple show kitchens for a truly experiential affair.
Pho Viet Nam District 1
Open 21 hours a day, Pho Viet Nam serves pho that’s cooked to perfection in a stone pot directly on the table. Fresh herbs, tender beef and scratch-made rice noodles – plus generous portion sizes – put Pho Viet Nam District 1 a cut above the rest.
Anan Saigon
Anan Saigon was the first restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City to receive a Michelin star – part of the inaugural 2023 Vietnam Guide – and it remains one of the most interesting meals in the country. Chef Peter Cuong Franklin, who returned to Vietnam after years cooking abroad, runs his kitchen inside a traditional tube house on Ton That Dam Street, in one of the city’s last surviving wet markets. The tasting menu works its way from Hanoi to Saigon – via bánh xèo reimagined as a taco, pho lifted with Wagyu bone marrow, and a tuna tartare that appears on almost every table. Book the upstairs terrace if you can, and arrive knowing the menu changes with the season.
Discover Vietnam
Feature image: La Maison 1888, InterContinental Da Nang Sun Peninsula Resort.
