24 Best Restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The centerpiece of this stylish, immensely popular Japanese-owned restaurant is not a sushi bar but a brick oven, and the focus here is Japanese-Italian fusion, targeted at the Vietnamese palate but equally loved by out-of-towners. You can opt for classic creations such as prosciutto margarita or something a little more experimental, like flower pizza (with edible blooms such as pumpkin, leek, and daylily), teriyaki chicken with seaweed or salmon miso cream. Italian-style appetizers and pasta dishes are also available, as is a cheese platter featuring handmade cheeses from the 4Ps' cheese factory near Dalat. Customers who can't get a seat will stand by the bar just for a slice of the mouthwatering pizza. Reservations should be made days in advance—yes, it's that popular. This restaurant is the original, with a growing number of locations in some of Vietnam's biggest cities.

Classy surroundings, attentive staff, and amazing cocktails are good reasons to come here, but it's the mouthwatering pan-Asian food that's the highlight, regularly winning over meat lovers who have reluctantly accompanied their vegetarian partners and friends. The menu is full of health-conscious options, and the food is as visually appealing as it is delicious. Unlike traditional vegetarian places in Vietnam, Hum uses garlic and onion and serves alcohol.

Industrial chic meets art house tucked away in a colonial villa at this well-loved café. The food is reliably good, offering a range of contemporary café fusion fare including salads, sandwiches, cold cut platters, and Western favorites. Beautifully plated Vietnamese dishes include a very tasty caramelized pork and herb number and a solid broken rice with grilled pork. There is a second, larger restaurant with a bright upstairs retail space at 19 Le Thanh Ton.

With a thriving indoor kitchen garden in the center of the restaurant, Secret House evokes the feeling of olden days Vietnamese countryside living; the home-style menu is short for a Vietnamese place, but every dish is reliably delicious with surprising attention to presentation. Schedule a visit early in your trip so you can return to try all the delicious dishes you couldn't fit in first time around. Food is ordered Vietnam-style, to be placed in the middle and shared. Do try to find room for the chao tom (pork and prawn grilled on sugarcane sticks).

World-class tea, cakes, pastries, and Australian café-style comfort food is served among antiques, objets d'art, and other treasures collected by globe-trotting chef and hotelier David Campbell. It's a very exotic feeling to be sitting on a vintage couch surrounded by beautiful things, using the free Wi-Fi and sipping top-quality TWG teas. High tea, brunch, or lunch can be served inside the antiques shop, on the terrace, or in the elaborate gazebo outside. The menu offers various baked goods, sandwiches, pies, and dishes such as lasagna and quiche. It's a great place to try Australian favorites such as lamingtons (chocolate cake with coconut), coconut ice, and sausage rolls, as well as European favorites like arancini balls.

Midway between the Reunification Palace and Notre Dame cathedral, overlooking the tall trees of April 30 Park, this is a great place to linger in exotic surroundings, whether for a meal or just a smoothie or coffee. The flavors are Mediterranean and Middle Eastern, the staff is attentive, and the location is prime. The appeal of Au Parc, in a restored colonial-era shopfront, is further enhanced by the children's playroom upstairs, which is supervised by a nanny on weekends from 11 am to 4 pm while brunch is served.

Slap-bang in the heart of the backpacker district, this gem of an Indian restaurant serves a great selection of curries, tandoori, tikka, vegetarian dishes, breads, and Southern Indian specialties. It's an unassuming, clean, and friendly little place, but if you don't feel like venturing out, they deliver throughout Ho Chi Minh City.

A no-frills, family-run institution, Banh Xeo 46A is the go-to place for one of southern Vietnam's most cherished culinary creations: banh xeo (literally, "sizzling crepe")—a crispy pancake made with rice flour, coconut milk, and a smidgen of turmeric, and filled with bean sprouts, onion, shrimp, and pork. Break off a piece and wrap it up in a giant mustard leaf along with a handful of herbs and greens, and dunk it in a fish sauce-based dip laced with chilies. The menu has been expanded to include other Vietnamese dishes but the banh xeo is still the star. There's a room with air-conditioning, but sitting outside and watching the food being made is more fun.

Down a small street near Ben Thanh Market, this cute little eatery serves cheap and cheerful Vietnamese food at its finest. The staff are friendly, the food is tasty, and there's a range of interesting and refreshing drinks and desserts. If you're into snails, its sister restaurant at 136/9 Le Thanh Ton is where to go.

Serving traditional Vietnamese dishes with an emphasis on healthy, environmentally friendly eating, Cuc Gach has succeeded in carving out its own niche in the city's dining scene. Set in an old French home that has received a modern makeover and is furnished with repurposed colonial-era furniture—including a wooden bed that's been converted into a dining table—this is Vietnamese with a green and design-y edge. Reservations are recommended but not essential.

Non-sports fans are fully justified in hanging out in Dtwo Sportspub just for the awesome pub grub, including classic burgers, fish-and-chips, Cornish pasties, and beef stew. There's also distinctly non-pubby grub, such as a cheese board, salads, and eggs Benedict. The TV screens broadcasting sports aren't too loud, so the non-sporty types can focus on the food, or a game of pool out back.

Just a few doors from the War Remnants Museum, this vegetarian restaurant is a calm oasis that starts to restore flagging spirits from the first step past the pond and lush greenery into the stylish interior. The fresh and healthy pan-Asian menu and the vibe are similar to Hum Lounge in District 1, but with a focus that's more on food than cocktails. Try the square spring rolls, the visually appealing rainbow salad with sesame dressing, and the wild vegetable soup.

Huong Lai serves traditional Southern Vietnamese home cooking with a very high feel-good factor—all the staffers are orphans and disadvantaged young people, given a helping hand by the philanthropic Japanese owner, who calls his enterprise a training restaurant. The interior is delightfully rustic, the service is friendly, the English language skills excellent, the food is authentic, and over the course of more than a decade, Huong Lai has launched more than 60 young people into careers in the five-star hospitality sector.

Catering to the young switched-on set, ID Café is popular with digital nomads, bloggers, locals, expats, and tourists alike. They come for its groovy interior design, high-speed Internet, coffee, and very tasty food, including several vegetarian options.

La Fiesta, run by the effusive American-Vietnamese couple Scott and Duc, will satisfy all your Tex-Mex cravings, whether it's for tacos, chili con carne, enchiladas, sangria, or margaritas. This place is popular with locals, expats, and tourists for its big portions, big taste, strong drinks, and great service all at reasonable prices. Vegetarian and vegan options are available. There's also a second location in the expat neighborhood in District 7.

This is a bright and clean vegan restaurant catering to local Buddhists, who are full-time or part-time vegetarians—some just forsake meat twice a month, on the full and half moon. An extensive range of fresh and delicious Vietnamese vegan dishes features on the menu, many using mock meat made from tofu, lentils, or beans (meaning there's actually no beef in a dish labeled, for instance, beef with pepper sauce). Not only is the menu in English, it also includes pictures, and the prepared dishes are as colorful as they appear on the menu.

Serving what is described as "redesigned" Vietnamese cuisine with a focus on fresh ingredients, the sleek and artsy Propaganda does nontraditional takes on traditional dishes, especially fresh spring rolls. You can avoid menu confusion by choosing the 510,000d or 580,000d discovery menu of four courses, three glasses of wine, and organic green tea. Midway between the Reunification Palace and the Notre Dame Cathedral, Propaganda is the perfect spot to recharge during a long hot day of sightseeing, while admiring some (you guessed it) wartime propaganda art.

For those craving a taste of the USA, Scott’s Kitchen serves big portions of soul-satisfying, home-cooked comfort food. There are more than 20 variations of mac-and-cheese alone on the menu including fun additions like Korean-style fried chicken, tuna melt, and BBQ pork. While the menu is unabashedly not aimed at the calorie-counting crowd, there are salads (but with ranch and blue cheese dressings) and the Nashville Hot Chicken can be made with tofu.

Serving a mishmash of international, Tex-Mex, and Vietnamese fare, Snap is an open-air family-oriented café-restaurant set in a large thatched hut overlooking a children's playground. Popular with the local expat community, Snap caters to non-families with its quieter library section tucked away on one side beside a manicured tropical garden. The restaurant tries hard to please all comers, with burger nights, quiz nights, live music, and an extensive menu. The staff is friendly, especially to kids. Snap is located in a complex with boutiques and other dining options, so leave some time to wander.

This hidden gem, run by Chicagoan Gabe Boyer, a runner-up in the second series of Next Iron Chef Vietnam, serves gourmet burgers named after the greats of America's soul scene, such as the James Brown (200-gram house-ground U.S. beef glazed with sweet and spicy brown sugar barbecue sauce, topped with pulled smoked pork shoulder, cheddar cheese, crisp beer-battered onion rings, and a creamy coleslaw). Order a side of truffle garlic fries and wash it all down with one of the many international beers on the menu. No one will mind if you serenade your meal with that classic James Brown line: "so good, so good, 'cause I got you ... dant-dant-dant-dant."

Walk through a boutique shopping arcade and be transported to the streets of Bangkok with Thai Street’s kitschy yet fun décor (think tuk tuks and a pay stand dressed up like a money exchange booth) and its authentic Thai street food dishes. Overseen by a Thai chef from Isaan, the dishes are prepared on the spot, so spice levels can be adjusted as well as made into vegan and vegetarian versions. The presentation is purposefully no frills, but the flavors are bang on.

Belly-filling fish-and-chips, pork pies, battered black pudding, beef and ale stew, with sides of mushy peas, curry sauce, and Scotch eggs—you can't get much more British than that. Union Jacks's Fish & Chips is a firm favorite with Saigon's expats seeking a taste of home and some "kettle is always on" hospitality. It's popular with locals as well, who are intrigued by the exotic dishes from afar.

This restaurant chain does a surprisingly good take on traditional Vietnamese street food, of which many dishes require wrapping or rolling. If actual street food freaks you out with its proximity to traffic, noise, and dirt, this is a quiet, clean, lime green, and air-conditioned alternative. Its menu includes more than 40 items and 9 dipping sauces.