THE 31 ESSENTIAL RESTAURANTS IN HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM
With the city buzzing again, we’re constantly asked about the best places to eat and drink in Saigon. So, we’ve compiled a các mục of all our favorites – from chic Saigon cocktail bars, to design-conscious cafes, and the best restaurants. Read on to lớn discover the best places to lớn eat và drink in Saigon right now according to lớn The Dot Magazine team, plus some extras, lượt thích where khổng lồ stay & what lớn do.
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Đọc bài viết bằng giờ Việt
It’s a relief just to be writing this. After two years of closed borders, and less than a year since the final và harshest lockdown conditions of all were eased, on October 1st 2021, we’re now happily (but gradually) ushering tourists back in và to the coolest places in Saigon. Và due lớn post-COVID amnesia – where no-one knows what to bởi on their trip here anymore – or the pent up desire being fulfilled for tourists to cross Vietnam off their bucket lists, or new markets with direct flights to lớn Vietnam taking the opportunity to explore, we’re asked more than ever, “What should I bởi in Saigon?”Since 2019, The Dot Magazine has become one the most trusted sources of what to vì in Saigon và beyond. Here, we’ve drawn on those years of hunting for the coolest things to vì in Saigon. And why incomplete? Because things change so fast. And we’ve probably missed a place lớn two. So, we’re going to lớn constantly update & edit this incomplete danh mục to keep it fresh. Next time someone asks, “What should I bởi vì in Saigon?” send them this.
Where lớn Drink Cocktails In Saigon
We had to lớn wait a while for Hybrid Saigon (121/30 Le Thi Rieng, District 1). Founder Lam Duong decided to open the first Hybrid in his hometown of Nha Trang. Still, despite the obscure location, he featured in Asia’s 50 Best Bars extended 51-100 danh sách in 2021.
Hybrid Saigon is like a spacecraft that landed in a Saigon alley. There’s a centrifuge & a rotovap on the counter beside guests. And the flavor-first cocktails, lượt thích their Pina Colada Old Fashioned and umami-rich Maestro Mushroom, might be the best drinks in Saigon.
You could spend a whole evening eating & drinking through District 1’sNguyen thai Binh Ward. Places like Madam Kew. Upstairs from Quince, Madam Kew (37 Bis Ky Con, District 1) is a stylish, chinoiserie-chic take on a modern cocktail bar, with a long counter và booths and sofas to lớn enjoy their fun, flavorsome renditions of Chinese cuisine, like their justifiably famous eggplant mapo tofu, or their regular DJ sets & live music.
The cocktails, served by effervescent bartender Alex, lượt thích their Rock Me Up with Elijan Craig Small Batch, Appleton, Fernet – Branca, Campari, Honey, Ginger Syrups & Lemon, are formidable too. & watch out for their upcoming dazzling selection of bar takeovers with some of the region’s industry leaders dropping by.
It’s tough, paying respect to the past while modernizing it. Ủ Bar (2nd floor, 5A Dang Dung, District 1) manages the balancing act perfectly. There’s the dapper ao dai, shelves of mysterious vitrines that look lifted from an antique store, & a bar that glows as golden as Saigon’s ephemeral era of the 1950s and ’60s.
But, just as it should be, any great bar stands on the quality of its drinks. All the rest is beautiful noise. At Ủ Bar, that means classic with a local twist và lots of fermentation because the ‘Ủ’ means khổng lồ age or ferment. There are bar snacks too, full of local flavor. Và a restaurant coming downstairs any time soon as well.
Ủ Bar takes the past & gives it a wonderful modern makeover.Drinking & Healing (25 Ho Tung Mau, District 1) was one of the first truly local cocktail bars to lớn break big. Find it on a majestic corner along downtown Saigon’s main thoroughfare, tê mê Nghi (look up for the ‘Nasty’ neon sign on one of the bar’s balconies). Now, downstairs is Rang Rang Coffee, as the GuruGroup crew cannibalize the whole building. But at Drinking và Healing a talented crew of ‘Healers’ phối cool cocktails served in inflatable unicorns & glass boxes filled with smoke. Booking required.
The name ASMR (15 Xuan Thuy, District 2) references the tingling sensation triggered by sensuous sounds but also here ASMR describes sections of the cocktail menu. There’s A for acid, with sour & fermented flavors, S for sweet and sour, with honey, chocolate và citrus flavors, M for molecular, with foam, bubbles and smoke, and finally R for rich, with milk, oils and butter. Và they’re served up by two local industry leaders, former World Class Vietnam winner Vu Ngoc Will and Vien Du, formerly of Drinking và Healing.
The minimal space at ASMR has a counter in the middle, with seats on three sides.Roka Fella (44 Nguyen An Ninh, District 1) is a real discovery among the halal restaurants và two-star hotels on this touristy street beside Ben Thanh Market. Downstairs at Roka Fella there’s omakase served around an L-shaped counter, and upstairs one of the hippest, most style-conscious bars in the city. There’s a DJ booth backed by shelves of vinyl. & around the side an eight-seat bar, and around again there’s a room, where you can enjoy some of Indonesian bartender Aris’ brilliant concoctions.
For classic cocktails, Yugen Bar (95/32 Le Thi Rieng, District 1), or its newly opened sister bar downstairs called Yubi, are essential destinations for cocktail aficionados. The Yugen Bar concept was inspired by the obsession with perfection (and its unattainability) when mixing a drink. But Dat Nguyen và his team come as close khổng lồ anyone at making perfectly balanced classic cocktails in Saigon.
Japanese-style cocktail precision in a bar dedicated khổng lồ the tìm kiếm for perfection.Summer Experiment (77-79 Ly Tu Trong, District 1) was another game-changer when it opened. After the heady success of their first bar, Layla, Jay Moir & team explored a cocktail bar-as-garden concept at Summer Experiment. Drinks are served in watering cans. There’s spherical watermelon vodka shots. And lots of sustainability-minded concoctions. And there’s some fittingly lush greenery out on the small terrace of this eco-conscious Saigon bar.
Among a number of Saigon speakeasies opening up around the same time Stir – Modern Classic Cocktail (136 Le Thanh Ton, District 1) really stands out. Two local bartending forces, Thep Dinh & Lam Duc Anh, joined together and at Stir – Modern Classic Cocktail created a cocktail menu written in Vietnamese, incorporating lots of ideas from the street food và drinks served right outside. Plus there’s a Truffle Martini that’s worth the trip up the stairs on its own. Stir – Modern Classic Cocktail was the only Vietnamese bar in the Asia’s 50 Best Bars extended-list in 2022.
Thep Dinh and Lam Duc Anh joined together & at Stir – Modern Classic Cocktail to create an all-Vietnamese cocktail menu.The Pi (45 Huynh Khuong Ninh, District 1) is our favorite neighborhood hangout. Founder Chun flips the open sign in the afternoon. There’s a small yard outside The Pi to lớn chill in, but the counter is best. The team love striking up conversations as much as they bởi experimenting with twists on classic cocktails. Watch out for their regular, female-bartender focused pop-ups.
Apothecary Saigon (12 Phan Liem, District 1) is everything that’s great about the city distilled into a single bar. There’s Apothecary Saigon’s rickety old house that they’ve taken over, the elaborate pharmacist’s decor và antique lights, cabinets và furniture, & cocktails dedicated to physicists and inventors. Plus Apothecary Saigon has a big stuffed ostrich at the kết thúc of the room.
Life gian lận alert. Nhau Nhau (89 Ton That Dam, District 1) is a Saigon ‘60s inspired bar in the same building as Anan Restaurant, and run by the same team. Although here it’s cocktails first, you can order many of the items on the Anan restaurant thực đơn in chic-er surroundings. Plus Nhau Nhau’s coconut worms shots are probably the most Instagrammable drink in town.
At Saigon’s Ministry of Men (Sofitel Plaza 17 Le Duan, District 1), connected khổng lồ the refined men’s barbershop, House of Barbaard, it’s hospitality first so expect an incredibly warm welcome from Kata Simon và her team. Here, the walls are crammed with photos of historical figures, và you can play ‘spot the celebrity’ with everyone from Haille Sellasie to lớn Enrique Englesias. While speakeasies-as-gentlemen’s-club have been done, at Ministry of Men it really works, perhaps because the team và the cocktails are just so good.
Le Café des Stagiaires (10 Street 54, Thao Dien) which opened first in Shanghai và then Bangkok, is a riverside bar and restaurant on a new entertainment strip in Thao Dien. While upstairs is a funky room và French-Belgian bar with a DJ booth at one end & some great food, craft beers và cocktails, most guests gravitate lớn the expansive rooftop with its uninterrupted views of the Landmark81 building. Plus, DJs often set up there too for a rooftop session.
Le Café des Stagiaires’s uninterrupted views of the Landmark 81 building.Another hip cocktail bar, L.A.B.A.R. (52/3 Dong Du, District 1) couldn’t be more downtown, right on Dong Du Street, in an alley opposite Maguro Studio and a couple of hundred meters from The Sheraton. Lately, L.A.B.A.R.s’ talented and restless mixologist Tam, who you’ll also see at 419 và TRE Dining, has been adding lots of street drink twists khổng lồ the menu.
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The endangered block at 151 Dong Khoi is an OG entertainment complex that’s been through endless evolutions. Of the many cafes, bars and restaurants in the building, our pick is Kohei’s (151 Dong Khoi, District 1). & Kohei Yamamoto is on-hand most nights khổng lồ regale you with wild stories of his years in the Shanghai bar scene. The cocktails are constantly on-point, & there’s cigars too. Next door, Lacàph serves coffee for the curious, & on the other side, Brothers Saigon Men’s Boutique salon provides some of the best men’s grooming in Saigon.
Let Irusu Lounge (57 Nguyen Du, District 1) bring out the gangster in you. Irusu is in an alley right opposite Saigon’s Notre Dame Cathedral, the walls are filled with images of yakuza gangsters taken by Belgian photographer Anton Kusters. The photos at Irusu are all tattoos & missing fingers.And the quality cocktails take a Japanese twist too. There’s a wide selection of premium và rare Japanese whiskies. And an open-air upstairs space with views of the Cathedral.
Easily one of our favorite speakeasies, 419. Bar – Restaurant (158/6 Nguyen Cong Tru, District 1) is hidden behind a cafe and a cabinet containing vintage cameras. Discover the entrance, & inside it’s an Alladin’s Cave meets izakaya. And the cocktails, by Tam, who is also the mixologist at L.A.B.A.R. & TRE Dining (see above and below), like their Umami Smoke Bomb, are brilliant.
Where lớn Eat In Saigon
As much inspired by Quincy Jones as the aromatic golden-yellow fruit, at Quince Eatery Saigon (37bis Ky Con, District 1) award-winning Chef Julien Perraudin riffs on BBQ-licked Middle Eastern-inspired dishes. Ingredients are sustainably-sourced and seasonal. But it’s always flavor first at Quince Eatery Saigon, which is why it’s a perennial #1 for casual fine dining in Saigon.
One of the great joys of eating in Saigon is going from a one-dollar banh mi to a one-hundred dollar fine dining experience in the space of a meter or two. That’s literally true at Anan Saigon (89 Ton That Dam, District 1). Opened in 2018, Chef Peter Cuong Franklin put together a 100-dollar sandwich as a dare from a YouTuber. He still sells one or two of those, or his 100-dollar pho, everyday.
Beyond the sensationalism, award-winning Anan Restaurant creates unmissable modern Vietnamese cuisine, or what Peter calls, “New Vietnamese Cuisine”. At Anan Restaurant there’s a breezy rooftop, two floors of the main restaurant below, và a hip bar in the same building called Nhau Nhau focused on locally-accented cocktails và coconut worm shots, và serving some of the same dishes as Anan.
Anan’s Foie Gras Banh Mi.Hoang Tung is a gamechanger in the restaurant scene in Vietnam. The “constantly innovative, occasionally rebellious chef” was the first khổng lồ introduce tasting menu-only evenings to lớn guests at his first restaurant, T.U.N.G Dining in Hanoi. Now, at A By TUNG (31-33 Dang Dung Street, District 1), he’s doubled-down on his philosophy of combining Nordic-style cuisine that contains the freshest, locally-sourced, seasonal ingredients beneath a simulated aurora-sky. Set aside two or three hours for A By TUNG’s elaborate tasting menus.
It’s rare khổng lồ see a restaurant chain get namechecked in best-restaurant awards, but Pizza 4P’s (8 Thu Khoa Huan, District 1, 48/01 Xuan Thuy, Thao Dien and citywide) keep achieving it. Founders Yosuke & Sanae Masuko have a relentless desire lớn make the world smile for peace through pizza. & with an ever-expanding range of natural wines, & even a natural sake, & a range of dishes that now goes well beyond pizza khổng lồ include hanger steaks and burrata salads, they deserve all the acclaim they get.
Ngoc Suong has been doing this since 1955 – serving the freshest seafood to lớn their guests. Now, third-generation chef Vinh Q. Le has added modern techniques and finesse lớn their fine seafood. Ngoc Suong Seafood & Bar (8D Nguyen Sieu, District 1) is a breezy homage to old-school nhau joints, brought right up to lớn date. The upstairs private dining rooms are perfect for groups. But downstairs at the tables or booths is the best place to plow through a plate of oysters or an overflowing seafood platter. At Ngoc Suong Seafood và Bar frequent live music, & the occasional after dinner DJ set on weekends.
New kid on the Thao Dien block, stylish TRE Dining (35 Xuan Thuy, Thao Dien) is an upstairs restaurant inspired by Asian bamboo và rice. Sip one of Tre Dining’s carefully chosen sakes or creative cocktails with views of the Landmark 81 building, and dip into a menu of modern-Asia cuisine prepared in their big open counter-kitchen.
Tre’s big mở cửa counter-kitchen, inspired by Asian bamboo và rice.There’s a lot of great izakayas around here, lượt thích Izakaya Ten & Hanakurata, but Mangestu (15/3 Le Thanh Ton and 27 thai Van Lung, District 1) is still our favorite. That’s because every dish on their menu, from their kushiyaki lớn stewed aburai pork, is perfectly cooked, & the sake and shochu comes in a range of pocket-friendly prices, with lots of attractive seasonal sales. Of the two Mangetsu locations, bầu Van Lung is newer, & more design-conscious. But both izakayas, probably 400m apart, are packed every night. Book ahead.
The sake và shochu at Mangestu comes in a range of pocket-friendly prices, with lots of attractive seasonal sales.Chef Francis Thuan earned his stripes in some of the city’s best kitchens, before graduating to open Restaurant Esta (27 Tran Quy Khoach, District 1). In his open kitchen, in hip Dakao Ward, Francis celebrates Vietnam’s “terroir, plants & seasons through dishes cooked with fire.” There’s counter seating, seats in the main room, and a perfectly private dining room where you can enjoy Restaurant Esta’s fresh oysters and cuts of perfectly grilled beef & lamb.
Francis celebrates Vietnam’s “terroir, plants & seasons through dishes cooked with fire.”Yazawa Saigon (219 Dien Bien Phu, District 1), part of a group with outlets in Tokyo, Kyoto, Singapore and Beverly Hills, presents a delicately grilled or occasionally raw beef menu omakase-style with the best produce flown in fresh from Japan. At Yazawa Saigon, the 07Beach-designed restaurant is lượt thích a Japanese castle with winding alleys and entrances over two floors, & inconspicuous private dining rooms. Yazawa Saigon is a premium experience, but an essential one.
The Brix, Tinto & Clay are three nearby Thao Dien restaurants from the same group. The Brix (26 Tran Ngoc Dien, Thao Dien) is an open-air restaurant beside their private pool, which you can take a dip in during the day time. During brunch or dinner The Brix restaurant takes the spotlight, serving modern French-influenced cuisine to lớn the occasional backing of a DJ set. Tinto (24 Tran Ngoc Dien, Thao Dien) is the team’s take on Nikkei cuisine in a wood and neon accented spot 100m down Tran Ngoc Dien. Tinto serves occasional fiery Japanese-Peruvian dishes. Their latest venture is riverside Clay (18 Street 6, Thao Dien), an ambitious restaurant, rooftop lounge & mixology bar. At Clay the food is Asian-inspired and wood-fired.
Pham Viet Chanh, a Binh Thanh Street near the Landmark81 building và City Garden apartments, is a scene. There’s cocktail bars, craft beer spots, Japanese-Italian cuisine, fiery tacos, fish and chips, omakase và much more. We’ve chosen Hachibei (83 Pham Viet Chanh, Binh Thanh) as our pick of the best. Even though that changes almost weekly. At Hachibei expect perfectly grilled kushiyaki around the counter or tables, highballs, & glasses of natural sake. Packed with just-finished-work Japanese, book early or try your luck around 8.30pm when things quieten down.
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Chef Willy is gyrating beside the oversized paella pan, Tito Puente’x ‘Oye Como Va’ is blasting from the stereo, và the sangria is flowing. Few places in the region have the energy Willy Trullas Moreno can conjure up. And besides the energy, there’s the impact, because, as Esquire rightly pointed out. Chef Willy introduced trung quốc to Spanish food. After the success of El Willy, which opened in Shanghai in 2008, the chef expanded with a fun new concept, Tomatito, in the same city. & this is the Tomatito Saigon (171 Calmette, District 1).
The building offers a myriad of delights too. You could start at ground level, with a hot chocolate at Marou, have pre-dinner drinks at Brick và Barrel on the đứng đầu floor, then head downstairs for a dazzling dinner at Tomatito Saigon. Or try any variation of the above. Added to that District 1’s Nguyen thai Binh Ward has some of the city’s coolest cocktail bars, retail stores và restaurants.
Back at Tomatito Saigon, although Willy only pops in occasionally (and make sure you’re there if he does), the place is imbued with his irrepressible energy, which may, in part, be thanks to lớn the brilliant design by his brother Max, which features a toreador costume, a Diego Maradona shirt (during his Barcelona years, obviously) and a hundred more touches that bring the place lớn dazzling Catalan life. The food pops too. Try the signature salmon TnT, or the paella. Showroom a jug of sangria. & life, for a while at least, is perfect.
And if you’d lượt thích to head even further west (or east, depending on your orientation) the same team have the banging tacos và burritos spot, Bandido a five-minute drive away (see below).
