Verticale

Frenchman Didier Corlou (formerly of the restaurant at Hanoi’s Sofitel Metropole hotel) is the most revered foreign chef in Hanoi, known for his deft French-Vietnamese cuisine. Verticale, which opened a year ago, is his first solo effort in the city. One of the entrances to the four-story villa that houses the restaurant passes bythe kitchen, through a spice shop selling pollens, star anise and ginger and up a flight of stairs lined with pictures of Corlou’s ancestors and his Vietnamese wife, Mai.

We loved: The $48 tasting menu, which might include fresh mango and foie gras ravioli in lotus-tea sauce, and a river crayfish roasted in its own juice with green da lat caviar and a watercress emulsion.