Where To Eat In Ho Chi Minh City - The Best Restaurants, Cafes & Bars

Last Updated on 27th September 2025

If you read my previous post about the best things to do in HCMC, you’ll know that we absolutely loved our time there and when it comes to where to eat in Ho Chi Minh, I feel like we experienced our fair share of the best restaurants in the city.

We also actually embarked on a street food tour of Ho Chi Minh on our first evening in the city, but I’ve saved that for a whole other post as I’ve gone into quite a bit of detail of everything we ate on the tour.

As for the best restaurants, cafes and bars in HCMC, I’ve included my favourite ones below to give you some foodie inspiration when you’re in the city.

Take a look at my ultimate guide of where to eat in Ho Chi Minh, including a fabulous Indian restaurant and where to get the best Greek and Mexican food in Ho Chi Minh!

Journeys Sandwich Cafe

After our incredible food tour the night before, we ate at Journeys Sandwich Cafe as our first proper meal in Ho Chi Minh.

I had the ham and cheddar cheese sandwich (115,000VND – £3.86) which was pretty boring and plain in comparison to the previous nights’ antics, and also a tad expensive for what it was.

However, it was absolutely loaded with ham and cheese and was utterly delicious so even though it wasn’t all that adventurous, it was totally delicious.

Matt went for a more local offering of the Bánh Mì Đặc Biệt (75,000VND – £2.52) which consisted of so many ingredients including roast pork, roast chicken, pickled chilli, cucumber, cilantro, chilli sauce and much more!

While Banh Mi is basically like the national dish of Vietnam, I’m really not that much of a fan of it as it usually always includes cilantro (coriander) which is literally the most revolting herb/spice in the world (in my opinion of course)!

However, Matt’s a huge fan of this variation of sandwich and he loved the one he had at Journeys.

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Nonla Guys – best food in Ho Chi Minh

Nonla Guys was one of the most highly rated restaurants in Ho Chi Minh and after eating there, I can certainly vouch for its impressive rating.

Matt had the Vietnam Bun Cha burrito which has Vietnamese-style pork, cilantro (urgh), lettuce, rice, onion and sour cream. I’m not usually a huge fan of burritos but I had a little bite of this and it was surprisingly delicious.

Matt’s a huge fan of burritos anyway so he really enjoyed this.

My Korean Spicy BBQ taco (39,000VND – £1.31 or 89,000VND – £2.99 with fries and drink) really doesn’t look like much but my goodness, it was so bloody tasty.

Unfortunately, it was such a small portion so I’d definitely order two next time, but we did upgrade my meal to include fries and a drink for an extra 50,000VND which helped fill me up.

I’m not entirely sure what the Korean Spicy BBQ ingredients are but I do know that it was scrumptious and now I’m desperately craving these tacos!

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Saigon Oi Coffee

Saigon Oi Coffee is located inside the Cafe Apartment Block and it’s just one of the many places to eat and drink inside the famous building.

We didn’t actually eat at Saigon Oi as we weren’t hungry when we visited but we did order drinks. I had the strawberry smoothie (55,000VND – £1.85) and Matt had the Saigon Oi lemonade (50,000VND – £1.68).

Both drinks were incredibly tasty and remarkably refreshing and were a cool welcome away from the intense heat outside in the city.

The food at Saigon Oi did look pretty good and it’s a very cute little cafe; I’d definitely recommend taking a look if you want to eat inside the Cafe Apartment Block.

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Ben Thanh Street Food Market

I wasn’t actually going to include this place in this post as we actually had a bit of a scare when eating the pork belly bao bun (75,000VND – £2.52) from a stall inside the Ben Thanh Food Market.

We didn’t realise until we’d both taken a bite of it, (because none of the staff really spoke English and there were no ingredients listed) that the pork bao bun was covered in peanut sauce inside.

Matt’s severely allergic to peanuts and so he had to spit it out right away and properly wash his mouth out. Usually, he always takes a very cautious bite of everything first but he must have just got a bit complacent with this one and bit straight into it.

After that, I couldn’t really enjoy it myself so I’m not 100% sure I’d recommend it, but I bet if you don’t have a peanut allergy then it’s sure to be delicious!

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Union Jack’s Fish & Chips – where to eat in Ho Chi Minh

One thing that both Matt and I miss the most about living in the UK is the abundance of fish and chip shops available. We’ve only had a handful of proper British meals since travelling so on Matt’s birthday, we headed to Union Jack’s Fish and Chips for a hearty helping of the good stuff.

I had the battered sausage and chips with curry sauce (140,000VND – £4.70)- my go-to order back at home. Unfortunately, the curry sauce isn’t quite the same as it is in the UK and instead it was basically just a pot of Tikka curry sauce!

However, it was still really incredibly yummy and it was nice to feel like we were back at home again!

Matt had the fish and chips (145,000VND – £4.87) which came with a coffee and bread and the portion size was surprisingly big! Again, it wasn’t quite as good as our local fish and chips shop back at home, but it was still such a nice place to eat on Matt’s birthday!

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Bollywood Indian Restaurant

I am absolutely freaking obsessed with all things Indian food recently.

After spending 21 years of my life convinced that I hated curries, I’ve now found a new obsession with them since travelling.

On Matt’s birthday evening, after indulging in fish and chips earlier that day, we headed to Bollywood Indian Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh for a celebratory birthday curry and oh my goodness, it was immense.

We had our usual order of butter chicken (120,000VND – £4.03), mutton vindaloo (130,000VND – £4.37), garlic naan (39,000VND – £1.31), fries (55,000VND – £1.85) and steamed rice (23,000VND – 77p). Of course, it’s definitely not a cheap food option but it was well worth the money and it was one of the best curries we’ve ever had!

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Hellas Greek Cuisine

For our last proper meal in Ho Chi Minh, we headed to Hellas Greek Cuisine.

Matt had the Souvlaki me Pita (75,000VND – £2.52) which was basically a stuffed gyro with fries, chicken, various salads and sauces. We’re both huge fans of meat stuffed into any kind of bread with sauce and fries so this was absolutely bloody delicious, I just forgot to take a picture of it!

I had the Keftedes (160,000VND – £5.37) which is sort of like Greek spaghetti bolognese and it was one hell of a portion! It’s not the best Greek food I’ve ever had, but it was pretty yummy and for such a huge portion, I think we got our money’s worth!

As I said before, I know that there’s not an awful lot of local or traditionally Vietnamese food in this post, but you can find more of that on my street food guide to Ho Chi Minh!

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