Restaurants in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) + The South

Just yards from Reunification Palace, this airy café makes an agreeable stop for breakfast, lunch, or a simple snack and coffee, especially on hot aft

Into an outsize wok the chef tosses a fistful of bean sprouts, pork, shrimp, and/or mushrooms, then pours in a slick of marigold-yellow batter, rich w

A veritable fantasia of white leather and Lucite copped from Philippe Starck, this all-day café serves good lattes and smoothies with a lounge-y sound

This cool Mexican bar-restaurant—owned by several members of the design collective from Gaya, just up the block—has quickly become an expat favorite f

Conveniently located on Lam Son Square near the Caravelle Hotel, in a secluded courtyard beside a German-style brewhouse, this casual coffeehouse (sti

Owned by architect Tran Binh and his French-Vietnamese wife, Thai Tu-Tho, Binh acquired a derelict colonial mansion and reimagined it as an indoor-out

This dinner cruise along the Saigon River provides views of the city’s skyline and highlights Vietnamese culture. Cruises take place on board a replic

Americans have gone crazy for this ingenious French-Vietnamese sandwich, but you haven’t really tasted banh mi until you’ve tracked down the venerated

Housed in a former furniture store, the I-Box Café is a casually chic restaurant serving a wide variety of 

Previously located downtown, this French-Italian restaurant moved to a more intimate space inside a restored villa in 2008. Set beneath a high roof wi

With a prime position above Le Thanh Ton, one of Saigon’s premier shopping streets, this irrepressibly cute tearoom with grandmother’s-parlor décor an

Should you tire of Vietnamese food and crave a heart-stopping infusion of butter, cheese, and cholesterol—in the form of escargots, Brie du Meaux, and

Frequented by Parisian ex-pats, this tiny bistro serves simple, authentic French fare in the Dong Khoi district. The restaurant is divided into two le

At this open-air barbecue-and-beer garden, patrons grill strips of tangy marinated beef—bo tung xeo—on tabletop braziers and share pitchers of foamy l

Located across the river in Thao Dien, this English-owned café-cum-furniture shop is a huge hit among Saigon’s expats, who gather in the pleasant cour

Located behind Ben Thanh Market, Nam Giao serves a small, but comprehensive menu of traditional dishes from the Hue region of Vietnam. Selections incl

Known for its upscale Vietnamese cuisine, Nam Phan is housed in a renovated four-story villa surrounded by landscaped gardens. Inside, the candlelit d

For 13 years, Monday through Saturday, the Lunch Lady has set up shop on a patch of pavement on Hoang Sa Street near the zoo—working from 11 a.m. unti

Open 24 hours and usually packed for nearly all of them, Nhu Lan is one of the city’s most accomplished bakeries—but the real draw are the banh mi thi

Fabulous buffet breakfasts at Opera are one of the biggest perks of a stay at the Park Hyatt. Don’t let the term “buffet” put you off: everything is i

Pho, Vietnam’s national dish—a rich beef consommé spiked with clove, star anise, and ginger and laced with noodles and fresh basil and cilantro—gets t

This rough-and-tumble joint with metal tables and plastic chairs serves the very best crab in town. Order cha gio cua (crab spring rolls), mien xao cu