History, identity, and flavours of the Vietnamese metropolis
The first thing that strikes you about Saigon — or Ho Chi Minh City, if you prefer — is the constant background hum, which at times turns into full-blown cacophony, generated by the motorbikes that swarm the streets like a horde of mad hornets. Everyone seems to have a scooter: from students, crossing the city from end to end in their uniforms, to delivery riders frantically answering thousands of daily requests — most of them food-related — and the office ladies, riding in high heels, perfectly dressed and innately elegant, with the confidence of seasoned centaurs. And then there are the grandmothers: born under French colonial rule, raised through wars and revolutions, today they run businesses or give instructions to their grandchildren over the phone with the same firm and direct tone, wearing their nón lá and crossing the chaotic traffic with enviable nonchalance.
Saigon is a layered, contradictory city in constant motion. Despite its official name being Ho Chi Minh City, most of its residents — and nearly all newcomers — still simply call it Saigon. A name that is not just a habit, but a form of gentle resistance, a way of preserving the identity of a place that has lived through colonisation, war, and revolution without ever entirely losing its soul.
Food, as often happens in Asia, is much more than a daily necessity: it is language, memory, geography, and history. In Saigon, all of this comes together in a cuisine that is both regional and global, humble and refined, unchanging and ever-evolving. The dishes speak of the fertility of the Mekong Delta and of Chinese, Khmer, French and American influences. They speak of war and hunger, of rebuilding, of modernisation, and of a culinary creativity with few equals in the region.
In this journey, we will move through neighbourhoods, eras and flavours, to see how the economic and cultural capital of Southern Vietnam has built — and continues to build — its identity through food. We won’t be looking for postcards, but for complexity; not for exotic images, but for the living and multifaceted reality of a city where the past is never fully shelved and the future shows up each day with a new face.
Saigon, city of memories and metamorphosis
It’s not easy to find your bearings among the many souls of Saigon. You move through neighbourhoods that seem to belong to different eras, from remnants of French colonial rule to the glass towers of the new economy, from colonial cafés to hyper-connected coworking spaces. Yet behind this urban mosaic lies a much older story, made of cultural layers dating back centuries before colonisation. Among them, perhaps the most profound is the legacy left by China, which exerted a continuous and ambivalent influence on Vietnamese culture and cuisine for over a thousand years.
Throughout its history, this country has endured numerous foreign dominations and influences, and among these, the Chinese presence — from 111 BC to 938 AD — left deep marks: in institutions, religious rituals, writing systems and, of course, in its cuisine. And yet, despite such a long and widespread domination, the Vietnamese people managed to maintain a distinct identity, partly forged through contrast. Food, as often in Asia, was one of the fields where this difference was asserted and preserved.
Many techniques — such as steaming, the use of the wok, noodles and soy — derive from the Chinese tradition. But Vietnamese cuisine has developed its own voice: lighter, fresher, often more aromatic. Where the Chinese model tends to concentrate flavours, favour long cooking times and rich seasonings, the Vietnamese one leans towards balance, gentle acidity, an abundance of fresh herbs and vegetables, and the contrast between raw and cooked. This is a cuisine that tells the story not only of what has been inherited, but also of what has been transformed and made unique.
In the South of the country — and thus in Saigon — all this is amplified. The tropical climate and the fertility of the Mekong Delta have made an extraordinary variety of ingredients available: freshwater fish, shellfish, tropical fruits, and an abundance of rice. The influences of ethnic minorities, the Chinese communities of Chợ Lớn, and the rural traditions of the delta blend into an extraordinarily dynamic culinary universe. It’s a cuisine that reflects the openness and resilience of a people who have always had to adapt, yet never fully gave up their own voice.
In this sense, Saigon is a key to understanding all of Vietnam. A city that has learned to survive and reinvent itself — also through food. And one that, still today, in its streets, between a bowl of hủ tiếu and a glass of cà phê sữa đá, continues to tell — with humility and resolve — who it was, who it is, and who it wants to become.
Southern Vietnamese cuisine: sweetness, freshness, layering
When talking about Vietnamese cuisine, people often tend to treat it as a single, unified tradition. In reality, there are deep differences between the cuisines of the North, Central, and South of the country, shaped by historical, climatic, geographical and cultural factors. Southern cuisine, which finds its epicentre right in Saigon, is probably the most varied, accessible, and instinctively seductive of the three. It’s a generous, sunny cuisine that reflects the agricultural richness of the Mekong Delta and a certain inclination toward a soft balance of flavours.
In the South, the sweet taste is more prominent and marked than elsewhere. Palm sugar, condensed milk, coconut caramel, and sweet marinades are integral to many dishes, though never overpowering: they are paired with salty, sour, and fermented notes, building a complexity that emerges through contrast and balance. Sweetness is often used even in savoury dishes — like in thịt kho tàu, caramelised pork slow-cooked in fish sauce and sugar, or canh chua, a sweet and sour soup with Mekong fish, pineapple, tomatoes, and tamarind.
This tendency toward rounded flavours contrasts with the drier sobriety of Northern cuisine, where the colder climate and a tradition closer to Chinese culture have led to more direct, contained flavours. Hanoi-style phở, for example, is clearer, simpler, and more rigorous than the Saigon version, which tends to be richer, spicier, and often accompanied by a variety of fresh herbs and additional condiments. Even bún chả — a Northern dish made with grilled pork, rice vermicelli and fish sauce — has a more minimalist approach compared to the layered structure of many Southern dishes.
Freshness is the other keyword. In every Southern dish, there’s a handful of fresh herbs, a squeeze of lime added at the last moment, raw vegetables served alongside the cooked. Vietnamese mint (rau răm), Asian basil, perilla, cilantro, and lemongrass: these herbs are not garnishes but essential parts of the tasting experience. They are used to balance richness, refresh the palate, and add green, vibrant notes to often flavour-packed dishes.
But perhaps the most striking feature is layering. Southern dishes are never one-dimensional: they include multiple levels, textures, and temperatures — often within the same bowl or plate. Take bún thịt nướng, for example: cold rice noodles, grilled and caramelised pork, toasted peanuts, fried shallots, fresh herbs, pickled vegetables, all tied together with a sweet and sour nước mắm-based sauce. It’s a construction, almost a microcosm. And the beauty is that each bite can shift in balance, slightly different from the one before.
The Southern food culture is deeply rooted in conviviality and sharing. Meals are rarely eaten alone, and rarely in silence. Food is placed at the centre of the table and shared, even in the most informal settings. People talk, joke, add ingredients, and mix flavours. There are no rigid hierarchies between courses: the broth may arrive first or last, the main dish merges with the side dishes, and the line between appetiser and entrée makes little sense. It’s a cuisine that invites participation, not contemplation; gesture, not form.
Within all of this, Saigon plays a central role. It is in this city that Southern cuisine shows itself in its highest expression, while also being constantly contaminated, reinvented, and reshaped by global trends. But first and foremost, it remains a cuisine deeply rooted in what the land, water, and climate provide. A cuisine of fields and rivers, urban and popular, capable of telling its world through a simplicity that, as often happens, conceals a refined intelligence.
Colonial Saigon: baguette, coffee, and French-style restaurants
When French troops occupied the city of Gia Định in 1859, they laid the foundations for what would officially become Saigon in 1862, capital of French Cochinchina and later one of the key hubs of colonial Indochina. It was not just a military conquest: it was the projection of an idea, a civilising mission — as the French called it — that took shape in the urban space, in architecture, culture, and, of course, in food.
Saigon was redesigned following the Haussmannian model: wide tree-lined boulevards, neoclassical buildings, squares, fountains, churches, and government palaces. The goal was clear: to build a “Little Paris of the East.” Iconic places such as the Hôtel Continental, opened in 1880 and frequented by diplomats, merchants and foreign journalists (including Graham Greene, who set The Quiet American there), or the Brasserie de l’Opéra, where French beer was served alongside imported oysters — while outside, far more intense aromas wafted from local street vendors.
Colonial culinary culture first spread through areas reserved for the French — the “Europeans” — but gradually filtered into the everyday life of the Vietnamese population, especially among the rising urban classes and those working for the colonial administration. Vietnamese cooks were trained in French cuisine in bourgeois homes and elite restaurants. Some of them, after independence, opened their own restaurants, giving rise to a truly “French-style” tradition reinterpreted through a local lens.
In this cultural crossroads, some of today’s key urban Vietnamese dishes were born. The most famous is undoubtedly bánh mì, a tropical evolution of the French baguette, filled with a mix of pâté, local cold cuts, pickled carrots and daikon, fresh cilantro, and sometimes chilies. The baguette itself was adapted to local rice flours, becoming lighter and crumblier than its Parisian counterpart. According to some sources, the sandwich began to appear in the 1930s, but it wasn’t until after World War II that it became a widespread and popular food, thanks to its low cost and versatility.
Coffee, too, was introduced to Vietnam by Catholic missionaries and then cultivated on a larger scale from the late 19th century in the Central Highlands, where arabica and especially robusta coffee found fertile ground. But the coffee culture — the way it is consumed, served, experienced — gradually became something deeply Vietnamese. On the streets of Saigon, among plastic stools and low tables, the cà phê sữa đá was born: a strong robusta blend served with sweetened condensed milk and ice — a clever answer to the difficulty of storing fresh milk in a tropical climate. The first Western-style cafés appeared as early as the 1920s, many run by Vietnamese of Chinese or mixed descent. These places quickly became gathering points for intellectuals, artists, students, and colonial clerks: places to read, to debate, to observe.
The most refined French restaurants were clustered around Avenue Catinat (now Đường Đồng Khởi), considered the city’s elegant lounge. Here, you could find venues serving classics like bœuf bourguignon, pâté en croûte, escargots, and soufflé, alongside local reinterpretations using Vietnamese spices or serving dishes with rice instead of bread. Dishes like pot-au-feu with fish sauce, ragouts with delta herbs, and desserts that blended French pastry techniques with local ingredients — like bánh flan, the Vietnamese version of crème caramel, steamed rather than baked.
Among the lesser-known but essential figures of this period were the domestic cooks (often women), who learned European culinary arts while working in French households. Their knowledge was passed down through families or became the foundation for small, family-run eateries. In many cases, the exchange wasn’t one-way: the French themselves came to appreciate local dishes, especially for their fresh vegetables, aromatic herbs, and the lightness of some preparations, so different from the heaviness of mainland French cuisine.
We must not forget that beneath the culinary surface, deep tensions stirred: institutional racism, economic disparities, cultural control. Yet despite everything, food remained one of the most fertile grounds for dialogue — or at least for exchange. Ingredients moved between cultures, adapted, and transformed. Colonialism left historical wounds that are still open, but also certain elements that, once “Vietnamised,” became integral to a new urban identity.
Today, in central Saigon, you can still find bakeries with French names, bistros offering foie gras and phở on the same menu, and retro cafés serving cà phê trứng, the egg coffee — born in Hanoi but now embraced here too. The colonial past is not a closed chapter, but a component that has been metabolised, reinvented, and proudly returned as part of a modernity that is entirely Vietnamese.
Saigon and the Vietnam War: between American occupation, conflict, and social transformation
The Vietnam War, known in Vietnam as the “American War,” was not only one of the most devastating conflicts of the 20th century, but also an event that radically transformed Vietnamese society, economy and culture. Saigon, capital of South Vietnam, was at the heart of this transformation: the nerve centre of the American occupation, a symbol of national division, and the stage for deep political and social tensions that marked the city’s fabric for decades.
The arrival of the Americans: Saigon as a rear base
From the mid-1950s and increasingly during the 1960s, Saigon witnessed a massive American presence, both military and civilian. By the late 1960s, over half a million U.S. troops were stationed in Vietnam, with thousands of civil servants, military advisors, and logistics personnel making Saigon a kind of parallel capital for the American presence in Southeast Asia.
This presence brought profound urban changes: the construction of military bases, hospitals, housing, clubs for soldiers and officials, Western-style restaurants, and nightlife venues. Entire areas of the city, such as the famous Tu Do Street (now Đường Đồng Khởi), became Western enclaves, filled with bars, hotels and cafés catering to American and international clientele. The conflict also created a stark social divide between those with access to this economic circuit and those left behind.
Economy and society under pressure
The influx of American money and resources led to a distorted economic boom, generating both sudden wealth and extreme poverty. The black market thrived, with Western products like canned meat, Marlboro cigarettes, Coca-Cola, whiskey and cosmetics illegally imported from military bases and sold on the streets. This phenomenon only deepened existing inequalities: those working for or with the Americans enjoyed privileges, while most of the local population lived through daily inflation, precarity, and violence.
Food, in this context, became a clear reflection of social disparities. American military canteens and Western-style eateries served steaks, hamburgers, imported beer and ice cream; meanwhile, ordinary families struggled with shortages and price hikes, eating simple dishes based on broken rice, cheap vegetables and diluted soups.
Daily life during the conflict
During the most intense years of the war — especially after the Tet Offensive of 1968 — daily life in Saigon became increasingly difficult. Economic uncertainty, curfews, sporadic bombings, and attacks turned the city into a place of constant tension. Despite this, Saigon’s residents showed extraordinary resilience: markets, street vendors and restaurants continued to operate, often under emergency conditions.
Food also played a crucial social role: cooking, sharing and eating became acts of normality, brief moments of calm amidst the chaos. During those years, new dishes or adaptations of traditional ones emerged: the already mentioned cơm tấm became one of the most common staples, along with simple cháo (rice porridge) and bánh xèo, a savoury pancake made with a few affordable but tasty ingredients.
R&R, leisure, and prostitution: the other side of American occupation
The massive American presence in Vietnam brought not only military infrastructure and consumer goods, but also gave rise to a less visible but equally significant parallel economy. As happened in Bangkok and other Asian cities during the war years, the flow of soldiers on leave (the so-called “R&R” — Rest and Recreation) fueled a full-blown sex and nightlife industry.
In Saigon, bars, nightclubs, and all sorts of venues quickly multiplied around streets like Tu Do and near military quarters. This informal economy created a vast network: restaurants, taxis, hotels, massage parlours, and small shops offering every kind of service to American soldiers and foreign personnel. But of course, it also came with problems: exploitation, violence, corruption, and a lasting social impact — especially for women involved, often coming from the poorest rural areas or city slums.
For many Western soldiers, these experiences became unforgettable memories — idealised or traumatic — later amplified by films like Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, books, and veterans’ accounts. In Western pop culture, the figure of the Vietnamese woman — often reduced to the stereotype of prostitute or occasional companion — helped shape a distorted image of Vietnam and its women.
Today, despite the historical distance and the social transformations that have taken place, it’s important to remember that this legacy wasn’t just a product of war or poverty, but also of power dynamics and inequality created by the conflict. Discussing it without sensationalism means restoring dignity to individual stories, and better understanding the social and cultural complexities the war left behind — even in its most painful and hidden dimensions.
The consequences of war and the American legacy
The fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, marked the official end of the war, but the consequences of the conflict were far longer-lasting. The unified Vietnam under communist rule faced enormous economic and social challenges. Thousands fled the country (the so-called “boat people”), while those who stayed had to adapt to a socialist regime suspicious of all Western influence. Still, the American legacy never fully disappeared: it lingered in collective memory, in family dynamics (especially the children of mixed unions, often stigmatised in post-war society), in urban cuisine, and in daily habits.
Certain aspects of American culture — a taste for quick and practical street food, the spread of packaged goods and preserves — were absorbed into everyday life, even during the difficult post-war years. Canned iced coffee, instant noodles, meat-filled sandwiches with pickles: although born of complex circumstances, these foods became part of the urban foodscape of the South, especially in Saigon.
A conflict that changed two nations
For the United States, the Vietnam War was not only a military and political defeat, but a deep cultural trauma that marked entire generations — sparking peace movements, student uprisings, and a critical rethinking of foreign policy and national identity.
In Vietnam, the trauma was just as profound, but even more widespread and pervasive: millions of deaths, massive destruction, families torn apart, lands poisoned for decades by chemical agents like Agent Orange. And yet in Saigon, something else remained: a tenacious will to survive, to reinvent, to mix memory and innovation.
The urban cuisine — perhaps more than any other aspect — bears witness today to this ability to turn the experience of war into a cultural heritage that is both complex and alive.
After 1975: between real socialism and everyday life
With the fall of Saigon and the end of the war, Vietnam was officially reunified under the communist government of Hanoi. The city was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in honour of the revolutionary leader who died in 1969. But the name did not erase the complex identity of old Saigon, nor its spirit: the city remained the country’s main economic centre, but faced a profound transformation — political, cultural, and culinary.
In the early post-war years, the new regime attempted to impose a rigid planned economy: large restaurants were nationalised, many private businesses were shut down, trade was regulated through ration cards, and collective ownership became the norm. The goal was to create an egalitarian system, but in practice, difficulties multiplied: chronic shortages, inflation, stifling bureaucracy, and a logistics network damaged by war made daily life extremely difficult.
Food once again became a precarious and unequal commodity. Some basic staples, like rice, sugar, or cooking oil, were distributed through rationing, but were often insufficient. For many, survival meant relying on informal networks, the extended family, and domestic creativity. Home kitchens adapted once more: people returned to poor dishes, balcony-grown herbs, and recipes invented with little or nothing.
Despite surveillance and restrictions, the black market thrived. Some ingredients associated with the colonial or American periods — condensed milk, coffee, wheat flour, canned meat — continued to circulate illegally, often smuggled in from Cambodia or by sea. Even culinary culture was passed on underground: those who had worked in French or American restaurants continued to cook for private occasions, weddings, or small celebrations. People cooked at home, shared with neighbours, and learned to make do.
It was during these years that Vietnamese cuisine began to take on the dual nature that still defines it today: on one hand, forced simplicity and focus on raw ingredients (born out of necessity); on the other, a refined heritage sustained by memory and oral tradition.
Saigon, though officially aligned with Northern ideology, never fully lost its mercantile soul. In alleyways and working-class districts, small informal markets and street kitchens continued to operate under the radar, serving hot food, fresh vegetables, rice desserts, and steaming broths. These were places of social connection, exchange, and resilience. An urban network that escaped state control but held the city together.
True change only came at the end of the 1980s, with the launch of the Đổi Mới (“renovation”) policy, which marked the gradual opening to a market economy. From then on, private restaurants, cafés, artisanal businesses, and free trade began to flourish again. But without that long period of silent resistance, Saigon would not have survived in its current form. Once again, food was the thread that held together memory, identity, and the possibility of a new beginning.
The economic boom and the new food scene
With the start of the Đổi Mới reforms in the late 1980s, Vietnam gradually opened up to the market economy and foreign investment. Saigon — or rather Ho Chi Minh City, as per its official name — once again became the most dynamic city in the country: a financial hub, a commercial crossroads, and the informal capital of contemporary Vietnamese culture. And, of course, an unstoppable culinary centre.
Street food, night markets, and urban food culture
During the 2000s, the city experienced a true economic boom: new districts, shopping malls, coworking spaces, international chains, and a steady flow of internal migration transformed the urban landscape and social fabric. Yet, despite this push toward modernisation, street food culture remained the beating heart of daily life.
Walking through popular or residential neighbourhoods, one finds rows of hot bánh mì, phở soups served in minutes, grilled meatballs, fried spring rolls, rice desserts, and ready-to-eat tropical fruits. Night markets, like those at Ben Thanh, Ho Thi Ky, or Ba Chieu, are true urban food festivals: colours, smells, freshly cooked dishes, and a tireless crowd moving between plastic stools and steaming bowls.
Food is not just nourishment or pleasure, but a way to inhabit the city, to connect, to share stories. Every stall has its loyal clientele, its own specialty, an emotional narrative passed down through generations. And every day, alongside traditional dishes, new combinations appear — inspired by Instagram, travel, and the ever-curious palates of young Saigonese.
Local-international fusion and return to roots
The economic growth also fuelled the development of a new urban food scene, balancing international openness with a rediscovery of tradition. Young chefs, many trained abroad, are reinterpreting Vietnamese flavours with modern techniques and a new focus on ingredient quality. Restaurants like Anan Saigon, ranked among the best in Asia, offer dishes that blend street food and fine dining, successfully experimenting with high-end cuisine inspired by local tastes.
Alongside these more ambitious projects, a generation of cafés, bistros and independent eateries has grown, working around the concept of “comfort food Viet”: simple cooking with a contemporary aesthetic, selected ingredients, environmental awareness, and curated presentation. The vegan and plant-based scene is rapidly expanding, often drawing from Buddhist cuisine, while the specialty coffee movement has turned the classic cà phê sữa đá into a universe of artisan roasteries, precision brewing, and slow culture.
It’s not just a trend: it’s a conscious return to roots, a widespread desire to value agricultural heritage, Vietnamese biodiversity, traditional fermentation techniques, and local varieties of fish, rice, herbs, and vegetables. Nước mắm, the iconic fish sauce, is now being produced in high-quality artisan versions, even appreciated in the most refined settings.
Covid, resilience, and new urban vitality
Like many Asian cities, Saigon was hit hard by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. After an initial phase in which Vietnam was praised for its swift and efficient public health response, the situation changed drastically in 2021 when new waves severely struck the southern capital. Strict lockdowns, curfews, travel restrictions, and prolonged closures of markets and restaurants deeply disrupted the entire urban food ecosystem.
Saigon, a city that quite literally lives in the street — among bánh mì carts, plastic stools, open-air markets, and shared kitchens — suddenly came to a halt. Entire families of street vendors were left without income, many businesses closed permanently, and a significant portion of the hospitality workforce was forced to return to their home provinces.
And yet, even in this dramatic scenario, the response was surprisingly energetic and creative. A widespread network of home kitchens, ghost kitchens, and delivery services developed quickly, coordinated via social networks or local apps. Chefs, young entrepreneurs, and families reinvented themselves, turning balconies and courtyards into small production units. The very concept of restaurant culture changed: more agile, more intimate, more rooted in the social fabric.
In the post-pandemic period, Saigon began pulsing again with a renewed vitality. Alongside the reopening of many historic venues, the city saw a real gastronomic ferment: new openings, neighbourhood bistros, sustainable cooking projects, and a return to family recipes reinterpreted with a contemporary touch. The focus shifted to ingredient quality, short supply chains, and local identity.
A significant sign of this renewal is the rise of the local craft beer scene. Once dominated almost entirely by industrial lagers, the city’s beer landscape has welcomed numerous microbreweries — like Heart of Darkness, East West Brewing, Pasteur Street Brewing Co. — offering brews inspired by Vietnamese ingredients: ginger, robusta coffee, tropical fruits, lemongrass, Phu Quoc pepper. These venues have become true urban cultural hubs, bringing together expats, young Vietnamese, artists, musicians, and food lovers.
Tourism has also picked up again, drawn by a hybrid and vibrant food scene that blends gourmet street food, culinary workshops, immersive market experiences, and new forms of urban hospitality. Saigon has become a destination for those seeking authenticity without giving up experimentation.
The pandemic left scars, but also pushed the city to reinvent itself once again, with the same indomitable spirit that has defined it for centuries. And food — as always — was the first language to tell that story.
Saigon as the creative capital of Vietnamese cuisine
If Hanoi represents the historical memory and formal composure of the nation, Saigon is the laboratory where Vietnamese cuisine experiments, evolves, fuses, and reinvents itself. It’s not just a matter of how many or what kind of restaurants the city hosts — it’s an attitude, a pervasive energy that runs through every corner — from the most unassuming alleys to the most glamorous rooftops, from street stalls to concept restaurants.
The country’s economic capital is also the beating heart of a constantly evolving culinary scene, driven by young chefs, entrepreneurs, food lovers, and designers who engage daily with the past, though without nostalgia. On the contrary: they reinterpret it, deconstruct it, and bring it to light using contemporary techniques and international sensibilities. It is in this ongoing tension between roots and future, memory and invention, that Saigon has shaped its postmodern gastronomic identity.
Many of the key figures in this scene have lived or studied abroad — between Tokyo and Melbourne, Paris and Seoul, Berlin and New York. Upon returning, they bring not only techniques and styles, but a new cultural awareness: a desire to celebrate local ingredients, heirloom rice varieties, forgotten fish, wild herbs, traditional fermentation methods, and rural recipes rediscovered through their grandmothers’ stories. Saigon thus becomes a crossroads between Vietnamese terroir and global culinary language.
This innovative drive has birthed restaurants capable of speaking to the world: kitchens serving deconstructed phở, bánh xèo presented as tapas, cocktails infused with lemongrass and nước mắm, vegan dishes inspired by Mahāyāna Buddhism, or desserts that blend tropical fruit with French pastry. Alongside award-winning international restaurants, there’s a flourishing of food labs, shared kitchens, supper clubs, pop-up markets and creative projects that transform food into a fluid creative language — one that can also speak of sustainability, craftsmanship, and community.
This ferment isn’t limited to cuisine in the strict sense: it also involves design, communication, and the aesthetic of the dining experience. Saigon is a city where style matters — not as a superficial display, but as a narrative form, a way to connect past and present. One eats not just to be nourished, but to witness a story, to take part in a shared urban ritual, to explore new expressions.
This creative dimension finds its voice even in the most informal settings: street stalls with impeccable plating, food trucks parked outside coworking spaces, food festivals held in the courtyards of art galleries. There is no strict line between “high” and “low,” between tradition and innovation: every space can become a stage, every dish a statement of intent.
Within this context, Saigon has claimed a leading role: it’s a touchstone for those seeking a young, conscious, connected yet grounded Vietnam. A city that has made food not just a marker of identity, but a tool for cultural dialogue, professional empowerment, and collective expression. And one that, with the same ease it serves a bánh mì or a tamarind amuse-bouche, reminds us each day that taste is a form of thought.
The coffee cult and a changing Saigon
In Vietnam — and especially in Saigon — coffee is much more than a drink. It is a form of social connection, a daily ritual, a declaration of urban identity. In a city rapidly transforming, where skyscrapers and scooters coexist with pagodas and colonial mansions, coffee remains one of the most stable, cross-cutting, and representative elements of how Vietnamese people inhabit their time.
From cà phê sữa đá to boutique cafés
Cà phê sữa đá, with its dense aroma and the sweetness of condensed milk, is an institution: a simple glass, prepared in a few minutes using a metal filter (the classic phin) and slowly sipped from a plastic stool, just inches from the flow of city life. Some drink it before work, others mid-morning, in the afternoon, or simply use it as an excuse to sit and chat for hours.
But for at least fifteen years now, alongside this timeless classic, a new wave of coffee culture has exploded: boutique cafés, independent roasters, artisan baristas, carefully curated design, and experimental brewing techniques. Young entrepreneurs and creatives — many with international experience — have shaped a coffee scene that rivals the best of Europe or Australia, yet remains proudly Vietnamese at heart.
Today, you can sip a lemongrass cold brew in an industrial loft, a single origin robusta espresso fermented in barrels, or a coconut cappuccino under a colonial-style pergola. Places like The Workshop, La Viet, Katinat, Bosgaurus, or %Arabica (originally from Kyoto, but enthusiastically adopted here) are must-stops for anyone looking to explore the creative and cosmopolitan side of Saigon.
A surprise for newcomers: coffee and a city that never sleeps
For newcomers to the city, one of the most surprising discoveries is this: in the evening, instead of pubs or bars, it’s the coffee shops that fill with life. Circles of young people, couples, students with laptops, musicians improvising in quiet corners, and entire families relaxing. It’s not unusual to find cafés bustling even after 10 or 11 PM, with dim lights, curated playlists, and a slow-paced ritual that evokes French cafés of another century — but without the melancholy, rather with a sense of pride and belonging.
In a country where alcohol consumption is socially accepted but not dominant, coffee has taken on the role of the urban modern drink: offering focus without excess, conviviality without barriers, energy without noise. The younger generations have embraced it with enthusiasm, making it a symbol of their worldview: conscious, creative, rooted yet open.
Social evolution in a cup
The success of cafés also mirrors a broader transformation. These places have become social, cultural, and professional hubs: spontaneous coworking spots, pop-up showrooms, disguised art galleries, intergenerational meeting points. Interior design is often meticulous, referencing Vietnamese tradition reimagined in minimalist or tropical style — with dark woods, bamboo lamps, and locally crafted décor.
Even the narrative around Vietnamese coffee has evolved: from a bulk-export commodity to a premium product to be valued, told, and turned into a cultural and commercial driver. In this context, Saigon positions itself as the centre of a new national gastronomic awareness, where flavour becomes story, and story becomes community.
Ultimately, having a coffee in Saigon today — whether in a tiny alleyway in District 3 or a rooftop in District 1 — means taking part in a shared ritual that unites generations and visions, past and future, popular traditions and urban creativity. And perhaps it’s right here, in a simple glass, that one can best read — better than in a thousand statistics — the transformation of a city that has made resilience a way of life.
Saigon today: resilience, memory, and fusion
The 21st century has restored to Saigon the role it has historically played: that of a creative engine, a cultural crossroads, and the beating heart of a country in transformation. The city has endured wars, famines, ideological shifts, and globalisation. And today, more than ever, it presents itself as a place that doesn’t reject its past, but reworks it into a new, hybrid, and dynamic form.
From hunger to food culture
In just a few decades, Saigon has gone from being a city marked by scarcity — where even a fried egg could be a celebratory meal — to a metropolis proud of its urban food culture. This evolution has not only been economic, but also cultural: people eat better not just because they can, but because food has become a conscious language, a form of personal and collective storytelling.
Today, one can eat phở on every corner, but also attend food festivals, local chef showcooking, exhibitions dedicated to culinary culture, and food storytelling tours through neighbourhoods and communities. The gastronomic past hasn’t been forgotten: it’s been incorporated, explored, and reimagined. What was once hunger is now memory; what was necessity has become choice; what was routine has turned into shared identity.
The art scene: from tradition to modernity
This ability to integrate tradition and contemporaneity is reflected in Saigon’s art scene, which has seen extraordinary growth over the past twenty years. From independent galleries and repurposed factory spaces, to studios of young creatives, street art, and interdisciplinary festivals, art has permeated the city, making it one of the most vibrant cultural centres in Southeast Asia.
Visual artists, performers, illustrators, and designers openly engage with the country’s history, family memories, and present-day tensions. They use hybrid and cross-cultural languages, just like the city itself. It’s not unusual to find exhibitions dedicated to street vendors’ lives, food culture, markets’ sounds, or performances inspired by Buddhist rituals and traditional Vietnamese theatre.
Many art spaces — such as The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Salon Saigon, or MoT+++ — host events where the lines between exhibition, dinner, and concert blur. Here, art is never just contemplative: it’s participatory, integrated into daily life, often accompanied by a dish, a craft beer, or a conversation on a rooftop. Photography, fashion, and product design are also developing at a surprising pace, making Saigon a lively and unpredictable platform for urban expression.
A city told through the sound of scooters and steaming bowls
Saigon is not a city that stands still for a photo. It’s mobile, irregular, elusive, full of contradictions, but also of genuine energy. It’s the sound of scooters blended with the call of a street vendor, the scent of frying garlic drifting into a courtyard, a bowl of hot soup served on the pavement as traffic crawls past.
Everything here is movement and layering: architectural, social, cultural. The French past, colonial times, war, America, socialism, capitalism, Asia and the West — all coexist, often chaotically, but always with a kind of inner harmony that only those who live here can truly grasp. “They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived.” This is what Graham Greene wrote in the aforementioned book, The Quiet American, and it was just as true then as it is today.
Food, art, coffee, night lights, spontaneous creativity, and a pervasive informality are the tools through which Saigon tells its story. A city that doesn’t strive for perfection — only truth. And perhaps that’s why it enchants those willing to be surprised.
Reading Saigon through food
To understand Saigon through food is to dive into a story made of layers, wounds, and rebirths; of flavours that endure and change; of everyday gestures that recount entire eras. Each dish is a palimpsest: it tells of hunger and abundance, colonisation and rebellion, family memory and the desire for the future.
Saigon is a city that has learned to survive by reinventing itself — and food is its most tangible proof. From the crowded alleys where phở broth bubbles, to the quiet kitchens of homes turned into restaurants, from specialty coffee roasteries to art galleries hosting dinner-performances, everything in this city speaks of transformation. Not rupture, but fertile contamination, where nothing is lost, and everything is remixed.
And perhaps it’s in a bowl of soup eaten on a plastic stool, or in a hand-poured espresso with notes of dragon fruit and cocoa, that one can grasp the deepest truth of Saigon: a city that doesn’t need to be fully understood to be loved — because it reveals itself slowly, in the gesture of service, in the smile of a host, in the quiet pride of a cook.
In a reality that changes at every corner, where certainties melt in the sun like ice in a cà phê sữa đá, one truth remains: to truly know Saigon, you must sit down to eat. And listen.