Joshua Zukas

Ensconced in an alleyway in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1, Nén Light, MICHELIN Guide Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City 2023, feels a world apart from the roaring streets of Vietnam’s biggest metropolis. Swarming around the restaurant are motorbikes and cars that ceaselessly tear through the city, but nestled within sit curious diners contemplating their spotlighted plates. There’s a lot to take in before taking that first bite. The atmosphere is relaxed and pensive as the diners chatter over the c

The French designed the French Quarter’s street plan over a century ago, but the Vietnamese have since made it their own. Motorbikes course through the streets, coffee shops spill onto the pavements, and parasite architecture abounds, adding a textured aesthetic to the orderly European blueprint. The French Quarter is also a culinary hub. Of the 48 restaurants listed in the MICHELIN Guide Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City 2023, around a third in Hanoi are in this part of the city. In recent years, t

"The implicit rule of phở is: Don't fuck with phở." Those were the words of Peter Cuong Franklin, the founder and head chef at Anan Saigon, when he gave me his take on phở's controversial history earlier this year.

The MICHELIN Guide to Vietnam lists 16 pho restaurants across Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. But which city can claim to serve the most authentic, appetising, and archetypal version of Vietnam’s cherished noodle soup dish?

There’s a spirited sibling rivalry between Vietnam’s two major metropolises. Hanoi basks in its 1,000-year-old history, boasting grand architectural heritage and legendary food culture. By contrast, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Hanoi’s younger and

Hanoi-based travel writer Joshua Zukas takes a stroll through Truc Bach, a neighbourhood that, despite being encroached by the Old Quarter and West Lake, still maintains a unique identity

Few chefs have a backstory as colourful as Peter Cuong Franklin’s. Born in a war-ravaged Vietnam, Franklin fled the country as a child in 1975, resettled in the United States, and graduated from Yale. He then launched himself into investment banking, a career path that took him across the world.