A Ban Mountain Dew

The first place mentioned in the list is A Ban Mountain Dew which specialises in serving dishes from the northwest mountainous region. According to the article, a lots of A Ban’s dishes are wonderfully smoky, with the chef Viet being a native of Son La, a province west of Hanoi that borders Laos. Viet is renowned for serving up tangy and textural dishes, as well as outré servings like fried bugs amidst atmospheric decor which references paddy fields and the upside down architecture of ethnic groups.

Chapter Dining & Grill Hanoi is a restaurant located on hip Chan Cam street that opened earlier this year and features technically-accomplished cuisine with a lick of flame and a twist of smoke.

Chapter Dining & Grill Hanoi 

The article highlights the restaurant’s open kitchen, typical of chef Quang Dung’s previous projects such as T.U.N.G Dining and Habakuk Fine Coffee & Bistro. At the restaurant, the cuisine plays around with street food as fine dining, including the spread-eagled chicken foot stuffed with homemade chorizo, with the menu being divided into chapters and ascending from earthly delights to heavenly desserts.

At the Capella hotel in Hanoi, the basement features Koki House Of Senses whilst the Hudson Rooms is on the top floor. Compared to the rest of the Capella Hanoi, Koki is a chic and understated underground space which follows a Japanese theme.

At Koki’s Akio Lounge, the bar team takes guests on a road trip through Japan with cocktails themed after stops along the way. This includes Nikko and its cherry blossom and Oita and its bubbling hot springs. Each one comes with a snack, approved by Juinichi Yoshida, the chef who turned teppanyaki into Michelin-star cuisine at his restaurant, Ishigaki Yoshida, located just outside Roppongi.

At Koki’s Hibana, chef Yoshida and his team serve the same cuts of premium Yaeyama Kyori beef, sourced exclusively from Okinawa’s Yaeyama island, as they do in Tokyo, with all meat having a certificate of authenticity with the cow’s genealogy and nose print.

In contrast, the Hudson Rooms is an ode to New York’s Grand Central Station, with a cocktail menu inspired by the train lines leaving the platform and heading across to Chicago and beyond to LA, north to Canada, or south to Miami. There are bountiful platters of fresh seafood too, and freshly-shucked oysters, before a whistle blows and head bartender William hands out espresso martinis as if you’re pulling out Grand Central on the 20th Century Limited Streamliner, one of the world’s most expensive passenger trains in a bygone era.