Ho Chi Minh is a vibrant city with an unmatched food culture. Known for their healthy and fresh approach to ingredients, you can find some of the best bited in tiny unnamed food stalls, if only you’re up for the adventure. Having been to Ho Chi Minh multiple times, we have a relatively small list of recommendations – this is because we want to keep this as up to date as possible and a lot of the city’s countless secret treasures are best explored spontaneously.
Traveling Asia? See our very detailed Singapore guide here.
Don’t know what to pack? Here’s Jess’s Packing List.
Top Restaurants
Overall: Recommend
Service: 7.5/10 Atmosphere: 7.5/10 Food: 7/10 Beverage Program: 6/10
Known for their popular Vietnamese/Australian chef-owner, Vietnam House usually pops up on most tourists restaurant list, and with good reason. They offer solid Vietnamese staples in a contemporary and comfortable setting (yes, they have AC). This is a great spot for first timers to the city, looking to sample all the delicious items Southern Vietnam has to offer, without immediately needing to hop on a tiny street stool to do so. Our ratings for this may not look high, but part of that is just because of the way we rate (we are comparing each restaurant to others all over the world). For Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam House is a great stop. We have returned for lunch every time we’ve been to Ho Chi Minh, sometimes even twice per trip. Must order: netted pork spring rolls.
Overall: Highly Recommend
Service: 8.5/10 Atmosphere: 8/10 Food: 8.5/10 Beverage List: 7.5/10 (sake)
One of the better omakase experiences we have had. Sushi Rei delivers a luxury setting, high quality fish, friendly staff, and the coolest sushi menu we have ever seen (a book including pictures of each fish that the chef took himself). They offer a variety of omakase courses (inquire at [email protected]) and we went with the signature course called ‘Rei’. It should be noted that despite Vietnam being incredibly (incrediblyyyy) cost efficient as a whole, this omakase is on par with other major Asian city prices. Additionally, it is a little hard to find, but the staff waits outside looking for you, and also escorts you afterwards to your car/Grab. Anyways, we loved it. Would certainly return and likely will.
Overall: Recommend
Service: 6/10 Atmosphere: 4/10 Food: 9/10
This place has some of the best Bahn Mi sandwiches in the world, and it appears that – when we went – no one else had realized this. Tucked at the end of an alley across the road from the Park Hyatt, this Bahn Mi food truck offers delicious sandwiches (for to go or to eat on their set-up tables) starting at 8AM. We stumbled over for breakfast every day on our last trip (we are not breakfast people, but bahn mi’s are the kings of breakfast). Highly recommend the lemongrass beef bahn mi, and the spicy chicken one. The iced thai tea was also such a treat! It should be said that there are tons of bahn mi spots scattered on most streets of Ho Chi Minh, but if you are staying near the Park Hyatt – please go here and tell us all about it so we can reminisce.
Top Bars
Overall: Recommend
Service: 7.5/10 Atmosphere: 7.5/10 Bar Program: 8.5/10
Summer Experiment is a young, hip, Asia’s top 50 bar with a very cool cocktail program and nice bartenders. It is well known as one of Ho Chi Minh’s best bars, and it makes sense. We tried somewhere around 8 of their specialty cocktails, which is saying as much about their impressive happy hour as it is about their actual cocktail program. It is located up quite a few flights of stairs, and does have a younger (20s-40s) vibe. We had our concierge make a reservation at opening, but as we went early during off-season we didn’t need it, so it seems you can play that by ear.
Overall: Recommend
Service: 6.5/10 Atmosphere: 7/10 Bar Program: 6.5/10
We really liked the Enigma Mansion, famous for being an underground vault-like atmosphere with high ceilings and wooden/brick decor. This bar would do really well in Brooklyn, but it also does really well in HCM. The bar program is pretty standard, but the drinks are nice and the people are friendly. This would be a good spot for larger groups.
Hotels
The Park Hyatt Saigon was a good hotel on our recent trip, because it was in a great location (and across the street from great bahn mi). We also loved the pool. The suite itself was spacious, the bed comfortable, the bathrooms maybe slightly outdated. They do have currency exchange at the front desk, which is great because it can be difficult to exchange other foreign currency for baht. Downside: we did not like the bar, so we might look into other hotels next time.
Tourism & Travel Notes
We used Grab for everything (basically Uber). Works great.
For arrival at the airport, we got an additional fast-track through security + meet/greet car service. The fast-track wasn’t necessary for us, we went through security as quickly as anyone else (which was about 5 mins). That being said, it always depends on how many planes land at once etc. On the other hand, the Park Hyatt was very efficient with the meet-and-greet. The time it took for us to leave security to be actively driving away in the car was also under 5 min, maybe the quickest ever.
Notable Places Visited & Not Reviewed
Anan Saigon: This was a major disappointment, but we might have just been very unlucky. The electricity went out. Then the AC went out. This both apparently happens a lot, so they have a generator for one room. Everything else was just… fine. Skip. Nu Lounge: Kind of a hysterical, slightly-seedy-Asian-pop-bar, but it is right across from the Park Hyatt and tons of fun. They let you play your own music/blast the music videos on the screen. Octo Tapas: Skip. Pizza 4 P’s: Very hyped up, but don’t recommend.
favorite moments
