59 Best Restaurants in Vietnam

One of Mui Ne’s best kept secrets is the beachside B&B Café. It feels out of place on the expansive grounds of Ca Ty Resort, but you can hang out here all day watching the kitesurfers and sipping reasonably priced fresh squeezed juices, blended coffees, and flavored sodas in shaded huts steps from the beach. The wooden chairs are hard, though, so bring a towel and sit on the beach or the grass. Meals can be ordered from adjacent restaurant.

Always packed with locals, this narrow eatery serves up Ho Chi Minh City's best banh cuon (steamed rice flour crepes stuffed with minced pork and wood ear mushrooms) and an excellent version of the central Vietnamese banh beo (steamed rice flour pancakes topped with dried prawn). Just order the first three items on the menu and you'll be in foodie heaven in no time.

This simple eatery compensates for its lack of sophistication with giant-size portions of the delicate banh cuon, steamed rice rolls stuffed with ground pork and chopped wood-ear mushrooms. Watch the resident cooks painstakingly roll out their sheets of rice noodle and spoon on the filling and feel your mouth start to water. There are three options: chicken, pork, or shrimp and pork. All three are worth trying.

Madam Phuong, the shop owner, serves from a simple little take-away counter, next door to a bakery on the edge of Old Town. When famed foodie Anthony Bourdain visited, he declared the banh mi served here to be quite possibly the best in Vietnam; and he might just have been right. What you get here is a symphony in a sandwich, and though both her menu and popularity have grown, Phuong is still serving up the same secret family recipes and silence-inducing sandwiches. Bourdain's favorite banh mi deluxe is a pork feast consisting of a mouth-melting slow-roasted five-spiced fillet, a rich peppery pate, a handful of herbs, pickled vegetables, and finished off with a generous scoop of mayonnaise, smoked chili sauce, and messy fried egg. Phuong also has vegetarian alternatives; ask for banh mi chay.

Take your pick of tom (shrimp) or bo (beef) to fill your Binh Dinh--style rice pancake. The local rendition of banh xeo is arguably the best in the country; they come smaller and zestier here than in other parts of the country, and can be wrapped in rice paper and green mango (a must). Wrap everything up, dunk it in some chili-laced fish sauce and tuck in. One's good for a snack; two makes a meal.

A cute and quirky little coffee shop serving a range of drinks, including beer, cakes, ice cream, and yogurt, Bicycle Up is a great place to rest and recharge with a book (check out the homemade book light fittings), a coffee, or a fruit smoothie while listening to mellow music. This quiet refuge is perfect for a rainy day.

A great place to stop for a midday drink and refreshing splash in the river, this bar sits between two large bomb craters left during the American war. Run jointly by a Vietnamese couple and Australian couple, the bar is halfway between Phong Nha village and Farmstay Village. In the winter they’ll also keep a fire raging to warm you up on your Bong Lai Valley bike tour.

This venue is spotlessly clean, and despite its popularity with tourists is still very much the real deal. Like all the best restaurants purveying local favorites, this place specializes in one dish only: bun bo nam bo (a southern beef and noodle dish). Translated as "southern style rice noodles with beef," this mixture of vermicelli noodles, beef, lettuce, cucumber, shallots, bean sprouts, cilantro, and chopped peanuts is more commonly found in Ho Chi Minh City. Be sure to mix the concoction thoroughly with your chopsticks to experience the alchemy created by the small serving of broth-drenched greens at the base of the bowl.

Serving creamy cappuccinos and delicious lattes in calm and quiet surroundings, Habakuk might be the best spot in the city for withdrawing from Hanoi's chaos with a book and a drink. Though best known for its excellent coffee, Habakuk morphs into a bistro serving delicious lasagna in the evenings.

This stunning café was designed by international-award-winning Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, who specializes in structures made completely out of bamboo. Part of the Indochine Hotel, it's a local drinks-and-ice cream spot overlooking the Dakbla River, with soaring inverted cone-shaped bamboo columns and many peaceful fish ponds.

This is a basic metal-tables-and-chairs joint that's open to the street, serving up a delicious version of nem nuong (barbecued pork) served with platters of rice paper, herbs, pickled vegetables, fried wonton wrappers (for crunch), fresh rice noodles, sliced green banana, and star fruit, which are rolled together and dipped into a pork-and-peanut sauce. This is a Central Highlands specialty that's best washed down with a cold beer.

When it comes to street food, Hanoians don't go in for much ostentation and the eating area here is decidedly prosaic; just a few communal tables under a couple of bare lightbulbs. What matters is the expertly judged broth, the light rice noodles, and the delicious meat, which is peeled in strips from hulking slabs of brisket then dunked in the broth for seconds to cook. Don't worry too much about identifying the restaurant: you'll recognize it from the long lines of people waiting outside.

No visit to Dong Ha is complete without a visit to this cheerful spot in the heart of town. It's both a charity café (Mr. Tam employs and supports deaf people in the area) and a one-stop information shop, without the hard sell. The menu is a wholesome mix of excellent Vietnamese and Western staples, including pizza, banh mi, and half-decent espresso. Tam also employs local war veterans and offers excellent tours of the DMZ and surrounding area.

If you are staying overnight in Dong Ha, Tam's also offers decent accommodations at very cheap prices (starting at 160,000d) as well as guided tours to the DMZ.

A favorite with locals, Am Phu ("hell restaurant"), has been in operation for more than 80 years, serving excellent Vietnamese cuisine. It's famous locally for com am phu, a colorful rice, pork, shrimp, and herb specialty dish—the seven colors of this dish represent the first seven steps of Buddha. This isn't a tourist spot; everyone eats together at large tables covered with red plastic tablecloths. Although there are no prices listed on the menu, most dishes cost less than 70,000d depending on how large a serving is requested.

Don't be put off by the grungy interior of this restaurant. The quality of the decor is in inverse proportion to the quality of the food. This favorite among locals serves only eight dishes, all specialties of the region. The price of 30,000d per dish should allow you to try them all—if you're hungry enough.

Banh khot (tiny rice flour pancakes topped with shrimp that you wrap in baby mustard leaves) is Vung Tau's signature dish and locals rate Banh Khot Goc Vu Sua as the best in class. This is simple, inexpensive, and 100% delicious local street food—and adventurous foodies will enjoy the whole banh khot experience, sitting on tiny chairs in a big tin shed that fills with smoke every time a new batch is cooked.

Opened in 1995, Banh Xeo Cay Phuong serves Central Vietnam–style banh xeo (sizzling pancakes), from 4:30 pm to 10 pm. A default order at this one-dish, family-run, off-street eatery is four palm-sized pancakes, but you can order as many as you like. Notice the original sign handpainted in classic South Vietnamese typescript.

Drawing crowds with enormous servings of bun cha (grilled pork with rice vermicelli), Bun Cha 34 does not fail to deliver good quality bowls for a mere 40,000d per dish. Customers rave over the charred pork and fragrant herbs. You can also order a serving of fried spring rolls on the side. Be prepared for a street food experience, as the tiny tables and chairs regularly spill out onto the sidewalk.

Bun Cha Huong Lien has wholeheartedly embraced the alias Bun Cha Obama since 2016, when the erstwhile president visited Hanoi and dined here with celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. The bun cha (grilled pork and rice vermicelli noodles) and nem hai san (seafood spring rolls) are decent, but it's worth visiting just for the photography documenting the occasion. It's plastered all over the eatery.

This basic street food outlet serves a great version of the local specialty, bun nuoc leo, a murky pork noodle soup. Patrons can expect celebrity treatment at this place, with extra plates of spring rolls, fried prawn cakes, and banana-leaf-wrapped roast pork offered, along with wide smiles. Don't worry—if you don't eat any of the extras, you don't have to pay (but they are very good).

This humble street food eatery is as good a place as any to try bun nuoc leo, a Mekong Delta specialty of broth made with fermented fish, served over fresh bun noodles, with slices of fish, roast pork, shrimp, and local greens. Pair it with a glass of sugarcane juice.

Offering very basic Vietnamese café fare, such as stir-fried noodles, pork and rice, and baguettes, this café associated with the Que Toi Hotel is a place more for satisfying hunger pangs than enjoying fine dining. Like most Vietnamese cafés, it's a place for people to meet, drink coffee, and smoke cigarettes. On the plus side, it has an English menu, which most places in town don't have.

One of the most popular com binh dan (canteens) in town, Com Sau Thu has been making locals happy with their cheap and cheerful fare for more than 10 years. (The husband and wife Sau and Thu now have three shops, but locals agree the original one at this address remains the best.) The daily options are displayed in a glass case at the front of the restaurant, so you can just point to a range of dishes and then take a seat. Vietnamese people usually order one meat dish, one or two vegetable dishes, and a soup, and all are placed in the middle of the table and shared. There's no need to order rice because it comes automatically.

This is a cute and simple drinks-only café consisting of a few tables and umbrellas set under the trees in front of the former French Maison des Passagers (Customs House). The outdoor-only setup gives customers a great view of An Hai Beach, making it an ideal spot for sunset drinks, except when the staff turn up the V-pop volume or when it rains.

Sampling a fresh banh trang nuong, aka Dalat pizza, from one of the night market street vendors is a must—a great snack to sustain you while you explore all that the night market has to offer. Banh trang nuong is a circle of rice paper, brushed with an egg and dried prawn mixture, barbecued on an open brazier, folded, and wrapped in a square of newspaper. There are many banh trang sellers at the top of the stairs next to the market. Along the stairs and at the base of the staircase are more food vendors, offering a range of soups, chao (rice porridge), and barbecued chicken feet.

A beautiful, restful garden café, filled with carvings and sculptures, this is the place to come for excellent coffee, sweet egg coffee (a Hanoi specialty of whipped egg yolk and coffee), and fruit shakes. The English-speaking owner, Mr. An, is a fountain of knowledge about the local area and is available to lead multiday treks or tours through nearby ethnic minority villages. He charges around $60 per person ($70 for solo travelers) for a two-day, one-night trek, including transport, lunch, and a gong show.

There's a range of street food stalls in the streets surrounding Ha Tien's impressive market, which comprises several buildings, including one marked "an uong" ("eat and drink").

Usually packed with locals, this big eating hall with metal tables and plastic stools is the best place in town to order hu tieu My Tho, a noodle soup that's the specialty of My Tho. The staff don't speak much English but the food more than makes up for any challenges with ordering. The menu, printed on the walls, is simple: hu tieu (rice-noodle soup), banh canh (rice-and-tapioca noodle soup), bot nui (rice-macaroni soup), and hoan thanh (pork wonton soup). There are different prices for hu tieu: thit (pork), xuong (pork knuckle), muc tuoi (fresh squid) and tom tuoi (fresh shrimp).