The best restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City

What is it? A masterclass in Vietnamese 'one bowl wonder' dining doctrine: serve one dish and serve it perfectly. This narrow shophouse has spent 30 years perfecting bún thịt nướng – cold vermicelli noodles topped with grilled pork and spring rolls, alongside fresh herbs and pickled vegetables – proving that an obsessive, myopic focus creates something approaching the sublime. Not ‘approaching’, it is sublime.

Why we love it: A single-minded dedication means every element is flawless – from the pork shoulders hand-sliced against the grain to the crisp spring rolls that emerge fresh throughout service. The charcoal grilling station operates continuously, with three dedicated cooks working in rotation to manage smoke exposure (it's that busy).

All of this results in a fresh, light but hugely satisfying bowl of noodles that's like a salad on steroids. The pork is sweet, the dressing spicy, the herbs fresh and varied, the balance immaculate. It's the kind of dish you could eat every single day and never tire of.

Time Out tip Cash only. Order at the counter, pay after eating. The ground floor buzzes; upstairs offers quieter seating. Oh, and don't make the mistake of thinking the pitcher of sweetened fish sauce is iced tea.

Address: 175c Cô Giang, Phường Cô Giang, Quận 1, Hồ Chí Minh
Opening hours: Daily 6am-9pm
Expect to pay: The full works, with grilled pork and spring rolls, is 60,000 VND.

What is it? Despite only being 8 years old, Ănăn feels like an absolute stalwart of Vietnam's fine dining scene, which shows just how far the city has come in such a short time.

From this narrow townhouse in Chợ Cũ wet market, Peter Cường Franklin serves his self-styled 'Cuisine Mới', the culmination of an extraordinary journey from wartime evacuation to Yale to Alinea to Vietnam’s first Michelin star.

The name itself implores you to indulge, to 'eat, eat', and with food this objectively delicious, it's impossible not to.

Why we love it: When Franklin accepted his Michelin star in 2023, he dedicated it to his mother: "Mom, this is for you!" That emotional resonance infuses every dish with profound meaning beyond mere technique (a technique that is, admittedly, impeccable). The appearance of 'mother's spring rolls' on the menu wraps everything up full circle.

The real beauty of the food at Ănăn, however, is that it makes you want to reverse-engineer your own experience of Saigon, lending new curiosity to the traditional versions back on the street. You emerge revitalised, with a new perspective on the city and its food.

Time Out tip A secret $100 bánh mì and off-menu $100 phở both require advance ordering.

Address: 89 Tôn Thất Đạm, Bến Nghé, Quận 1, Hồ Chí Minh
Opening hours: Open Tuesday to Sunday, for 5.30pm & 8.30pm seatings (by reservation) for tasting menus, and 5pm to 11pm for a la carte. Closed on Mondays. 
Expect to pay: 3.5 million VND for the full North to South tasting menu (a shorter ‘Saigon’ tasting menu is available for 2.5 million VND). Recommended wines are all 490,000 VND by the glass or 2.4 million VND by the bottle.

What is it? Forget bánh mì or summer rolls. At Ốc Đào, you'll find the definitive street-level Saigon dining experience, complete with sucking snails. Here, Vietnam's cherished ăn chơi (the art of eating as a form of play) reaches its ultimate expression.

Why we love it: Saigon's evening summons of 'going for snails' is so much more than its somewhat prosaic invitation. It encompasses an entire seafood extravaganza, where shells of all manner of molluscs, bivalves, and crustaceans accumulate underfoot, and the distinctive, otherworldly (for this part of the world, anyway) perfume of butter-fried garlic fills the air.

Of course, there is beer. Lots of it. Scuffles flare up and cool down. Couples fall out and reconcile. Friendships are formed and then forgotten about by the time you pay your bill. Every time focus wanders, it's pulled back in by the only constant here: the patient ritual of snail extraction from shell, anchoring the whole affair in something manual and mindful.

Time Out tip The picture menu helps, but pointing at neighbouring tables works better. Two-pronged picks have limitations; determined shell sucking is often necessary.

Address: 212B/D48 Đ. Nguyễn Trãi, Phường Nguyễn Cư Trinh, Quận 1, Hồ Chí Minh
Opening hours: Daily 11am-10.15pm (often later)
Expect to pay: A single sharing plate of snails, clams or oysters hovers around the 100,000 VND mark, so expect to pay around 500,000 VND per person for an absolute feast including several beers.

What is it? The ultimate expression of Saigon's egalitarian dining culture, where broken rice – once considered waste – becomes the foundation for one of the city's most beloved meals. If Hanoi runs on phở, then Saigon draws its power from broken rice, and Cơm Tấm Ba Ghiền has been perfecting the art since 1995.

Why we love it: This is where working-class ingenuity meets exuberant, delicious generosity.

Closer to the airport than the centre of the action, follow your nose as you reach residential Phú Nhuận; you can genuinely smell the grilling pork from blocks away, and watching the cooks manually fan massive chops over charcoal while its sweet marinade drips, smokes and caramelises is enough to set even the most stubborn of Pavlov reactions into drool mode.

The thập cẩm (fully loaded) version arrives stacked with goodies – that pork chop, shredded pork skin, meat loaf, a fried egg, chicken...we could go on. It goes on, spilling off the plate's edges, unabashed and uncontainable. It's no wonder Saigon has flourished quite so spectacularly, if this is the city's fuel.

Time Out tip: Ba Ghiền accepts no reservations – it's first come, first served, democratic as it should be. At weekends, the 8am opening hour feels more like the firing of a starting gun. If it's full, just around the corner, Old Sister Broken Rice is a capable alternative.

Address: 84 Đ. Đặng Văn Ngữ, Phường 10, Phú Nhuận, Hồ Chí Minh 
Opening hours: Daily 8am-8.30pm
Expect to pay: 160,000 VND for the full thập cẩm experience. Drinks are just 20,000 VND or so.

What is it? A restaurant where fire is the star ingredient and flames transform premium imported protein into a kind of primal luxury.

Why we love it: French chef Julien Perraudin's combination of the elemental and the indulgent is simply irresistible at Quince. Here, in a renovated French-era mansion in District 1, he has built two custom wood-fired ovens that burn continuously, infusing both the food and the dining room with a subtle smokiness.

Quince is the Saigon restaurant that would feel most at home in Paris, London, or New York, excelling in the kind of high-low energy that has taken over cosmopolitan dining rooms across the world in recent years. The wood-roasted bone marrow, covered in caviar and designed to be spread over barbecued sourdough, exemplifies this perfect balance of luxury and comfort.

Service further reflects this sensibility. Perraudin often serves tables (unclothed, naturally), eschewing formal service for a personal connection, and gratis shots might be offered to those lucky enough to be parked at the counter overlooking the kitchen.

Time Out tip Half portions of larger mains are designed to accommodate solo diners at the coveted counter seats. The upstairs cocktail bar, Madam Kew, opens at 9pm for post-dinner drinks.

Address: 37bis Đ. Ký Con, Phường Nguyễn Thái Bình, Quận 1, Hồ Chí Minh
Opening hours: Dinner only, 5.30pm to 10.30pm
Expect to pay: A decent spread with modest wine consumption might come to around 2,500,000 VND per head. It's close to European prices, but you're paying for premium ingredients. 

What is it? An extraordinarily attractive converted villa on a peaceful Saigon side street, where Vietnamese vegetarian cuisine reaches transcendent heights.

Why we love it Rarely does a menu and its setting feel so synergistic. Using recipes inherited from monks at Ấn Quang pagoda, the kitchen transforms humble vegetables into revelatory dishes. The seasonal flower hotpot, featuring daylily, jasmine, and banana blossoms, is a highlight; a broth so aromatic and floral that you might mistake it for perfume if it weren’t so delicious. 

And then there's the space; fairy-lit, plant-filled, bright and breezy, with indoor and outdoor spaces for whatever the mood (and weather) dictates.

Buddhist holidays bring an influx of new diners, and you'll often see monks eating here, creating a chilled, contemplative atmosphere that never feels austere. Seemingly operating within its own microclimate of calm, Chay Garden emphatically proves that plant-based dining can be all things: spiritually nourishing, gastronomically sophisticated, but still a lot of fun.

Time Out tip Stick with traditional Vietnamese and Thai dishes rather than the Western fusion items. Oil-free options are clearly marked, and brown rice is available for a 15,000 VND supplement.

Address: 52 Võ Văn Tần, Phường 6, Quận 3, Hồ Chí Minh
Opening hours: Daily 10am-10pm
Expect to pay: Single dishes cost between 100,000 and 150,000 VND. Six to eight dishes will happily feed a table of four, with rice.

What is it? This cool, classy first-floor restaurant right in the heart of the action near Bến Thành Market brings Latin American cuisine to Saigon. It’s a shared culinary DNA that leads to something truly compelling both in the glass and on the plate.

Why we love it Chef Adrian Chong Yen, who spent more than a decade cooking in Singapore, celebrates the "shared similarities in terms of culture and palates" between Asian and Latin American cooking, showing that the holy trinity of lime, chilli and fresh coriander, and a preference for bright, vital flavours, folds the map on those 9,000 miles in some style.

Fish sauce appears in glazes, Vietnamese coffee in desserts, rice crackers replace traditional tortilla chips, Korean chillies stand in for Mexican varieties, and you might even pick up a little Thai basil in the chimichurri. 

He's chosen the perfect room for this cross-cultural conversation: a breezy space centred around an open kitchen, with loads of natural light that reflects off glossy succulents and burnished wood surfaces. It's an especially uplifting place to dine in the daytime.

Time Out tip: An extended happy hour (5-7pm) means cocktails for just 99,000 VND – ridiculous value for the quality of the pour. A new District 7 location boasts sunset views and tranquil poolside tables for a completely different vibe.

Address: 110 - 112 Lý Tự Trọng, Phường Bến Thành, Quận 1, Hồ Chí Minh
Opening hours: Daily for lunch 11am-2pm, and dinner 5pm-10.30pm
Expect to pay: Small plates are around 250,000 VND, while sharing mains are all 580,000 VND. The seafood platter for four is just 590,000 VND, which is exceptional value. Expect to pay around 1 million VND per person, including a couple of cocktails each.