This French-influenced Asian capital is a food lover’s dream

It’s 5am in Hanoi’s Long Bien market. A boy sits in front of his mother on a motorbike, his sleepy head resting on a pillow folded over the handlebars. They’re puttering at walking pace through the sporadically neon-lit perimeter road of this all-night wholesale market, straining bags of plucked chickens evenly distributed on either side of the back wheel.

Nearby, a woman sits surrounded by a three-sided wall of pineapples, a perfectly groomed Pomeranian sitting pertly at her feet. There are huge baskets of herbs, crates of eggs arranged by size and colour, bundles of spring onion, lemongrass and lime leaves.

This is the banquet of ingredients disseminated throughout Hanoi every day, ferried to thousands of smaller street markets, food stalls, roving vendors and restaurants, feeding a city of nine million and all the visitors who arrive not just with backpacks and suitcases, but also with voracious appetites. Hanoi is the most delicious of cities, threaded with influences from Vietnam’s many regions, as well as China to the north, and the colonising French who headquartered in Hanoi from the late 19th century into the 1950s.

So what to eat, and where? Here are some Hanoi highlights.

Pho

You can get pho all over the country, but there’s nothing like a Hanoi crawl for pho bo (beef noodle soup). Generally eaten as a morning meal, street stalls set up before dawn and many shopfront restaurants run out of broth by 9am.

Good places to sit elbow to elbow with other diners include Pho Loc (14 Hoe Nhai), which is tucked away at the northern end of the Old Quarter and has light, sweet broth.

Pho Thin (13 Lo Duc Street) in the Hai Ba Trung district to the south, is always crammed – and deservedly so. Pay outside, take a seat indoors, and wait for your bowl. This broth is enriched with marrow bones so it’s cloudy, the beef is stir-fried so there’s a smoky tinge and there are huge handfuls of spring onions scattered over the noodles. There’s no wrong way with the condiments on every table: taste, season, slurp.

Coffee

Vietnam has a vibrant coffee culture, supported by homegrown beans – the country is the world’s second-largest coffee producer after Brazil (with similar deforestation issues). The classic drink is dark-roasted coffee made using a metal “phin” filter, stirred with condensed milk, and usually iced.

Egg coffee is a Hanoi tradition dating back to the 1940s. The story goes that Nguyen Van Giang dealt with a milk shortage by whisking egg yolks, sugar and condensed milk to create a sturdy foam that was spooned over the coffee.

Try it at the original – and very unassuming – Cafe Giang in the old town (cafegiang.vn). Another great place for coffee is Cafe Duy Tri (43A Yen Phu) in Tay Ho neighbourhood: sit on the tiny upstairs balcony and sip a surprising and delicious iced yoghurt coffee.

Bun cha

Vying with pho and banh mi for the title of Hanoi’s most essential street food, bun cha comprises charcoal-grilled pork meatballs and pork belly slices served with broth, herbs and rice noodles. It’s a DIY assembly that’s both hearty, fresh and sustaining. You’ll find it at pop-up stalls all over the city, generally around lunchtime: sit down on a tiny plastic chair and eat with the locals. Despite being very touristy, Old Quarter favourite Bun Cha 74 Hang Quat (74 Hang Quat) still delivers. Head down the alley for fresh-grilled bun cha, served in the broth, and fried spring rolls.

Cocktails

Hanoi’s bar scene doesn’t have the density of Hong Kong or the cool factor of Bangkok but there are plenty of cool places to land for a fancy sip.

There’s a thrilling reveal at speakeasy-style Rabbit Habit: down a dark alley to an unmarked door and up a narrow staircase and you’re in a cosy den with theatrical and creative cocktails. It’s near Train Street, which is a fun place to pay too much for a beer and watch the trains pass dangerously close.

YY Bar (10 Tran Nguyen Han) at the new Fairmont Hotel (fairmont.com) is a plush lounge for beautifully made signature cocktails with Vietnamese ingredients such as lotus root and dracontomelon, a sour fruit.

Upscale

Hanoi’s street food is incredible but there are also contemporary expressions of local flavours in extremely comfortable settings. Australian chef Luke Nguyen has just opened Tran Dynasty (trandynastyhanoi.com) in the Fairmont Hotel, an opulent expression of cuisine from its prosperous namesake era (1225 to 1400).

The open kitchen delivers thoughtful and tasty food (I’m still thinking about the caramelised fish sauce with seasonal vegetables) but my true obsession is the pho cocktail, presented over an ice bath scattered with spices.

Another option – more rustic and cosy – is Tam Vi (nhahangtamvivn.com), which specialises in northern Vietnamese homestyle cooking.

THE DETAILS

STAY
Opened in March 2026, Fairmont Hanoi is a luxury, medium-rise hotel located between the French Quarter and the Old Quarter, close to Hoan Kiem Lake. There are 241 rooms, eight dining options, and the swank, subterranean CIRUA Bathhouse, which offers everything from ice rooms to very hot saunas and meditation pods. From $500 a night for a king room. See fairmont.com

FLY
Vietnam Airlines flies directly from Sydney and Melbourne to Hanoi. See vietnamairlines.com

The writer was a guest of the Fairmont Hotel.