Saigon

89 Tôn Thất Đạm Street, Bến Nghé Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

Peter Cuong Franklin returned to Vietnam in 2017 after a route that had already become slightly ridiculous: born in Vietnam, evacuated as a child after the war, raised in the United States, investment banking, culinary school, kitchens including Caprice in Hong Kong and Nahm in Bangkok, then back to Saigon to open a restaurant in Chợ Cũ, the old wet market on Tôn Thất Đạm Street. His mother, meanwhile, ran a noodle shop in Đà Lạt. Anan is wedged vertically into the market. Vendors work outside. Produce, meat, scooters and the ordinary commerce of central Saigon continue around the building while Franklin takes bánh xèo, bánh nhúng, phở, fish sauce, rice and the grammar of Vietnamese street food upstairs and starts misbehaving with it. Caviar appears. Truffle has entered phở. Techniques acquired abroad meet food Franklin grew up around. The building also accumulated Pot Au Pho and the drinking bar Nhau Nhau. The street remains present in the room, giving Franklin enough cultural authority and physical proximity to break rules with energy. In 2024 Anan was ranked among Asia's 50 Best and named the list's best restaurant in Vietnam; by the current 2026 list it sits at No. 86 in the extended 51–100 ranking. Rankings move. The market outside continues selling lunch.

5A Tống Hữu Định Street, An Khánh Ward, Ho Chi Minh City

Leave central Saigon, cross toward the quieter residential fabric east of the river and enter a twentieth-century villa with a garden. There is an eight-seat chef's table, a fermentation cabinet, herbs growing outside and a spa upstairs. Chef Cuong Nguyen's central idea is mâm cơm: the Vietnamese family meal arranged around a shared tray. Not one heroic plate in front of one heroic diner, but rice, soup, vegetables, protein, condiments and several dishes whose meaning comes partly from being eaten together. An's takes that domestic structure and pulls it into an eight-seat chef's-table format. The restaurant says it was the first in Vietnam to build a chef's-table experience specifically around the idea. The menus have wandered through rice, the five-fruit Tết tray, childhood games, the rainy season, ideas contained in the Vietnamese word đồng, and most recently color. Recognizable Vietnamese flavors discipline the storytelling. Cuong grew up in Hanoi cooking with his grandparents before training professionally, so the nostalgia has actual people attached to it. Beside Anan, the contrast is useful. Anan is restless, urban, market-facing and internationally promiscuous. An's retreats into a house and pulls apart the family table with obsessive tenderness. One makes Saigon street food louder; the other asks diners to study dinner at home for several hours.

160 Pasteur Street, Bến Nghé Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

Ngon is what you want on the first day in Saigon when you are hungry enough to order half of Vietnam. It sits inside a huge old French villa on Pasteur, but the inside is completely ridiculous: red walls, palms everywhere, rattan chairs, open courtyards and cooking stations running around the building. The whole idea is basically to take Vietnamese street food from the north, centre and south and put all of it under one roof. Bánh xèo, bánh khọt, spring rolls, noodles, grilled meats, salads, soups and coconut drinks fill the enormous menu, with much of it cooked in front of you. Yes, it is famous and very easy for tourists. That is not a reason to avoid it. Go with several people, order far too much, put everything in the middle and use it as an introduction to Vietnamese food before spending the rest of the trip hunting down the individual versions around the city.