The Best Vietnamese Food in the United States

Cà phê trứng, the traditional Vietnamese egg coffee, is the thing to know before you walk in. Càphin is a Vietnamese coffee shop that graduated from farmers market food truck to its first permanent spot, bringing along the creamy egg coffees, pandan espresso drinks, and ube matcha lattes that built the following. Pastries come from Cardigan Donuts and Mogi Bagel, so the case pulls its weight too. Order ahead if you're in a hurry.

Cơm tấm is broken rice, the humble fragments left after milling, and this East San Jose spot has built its whole identity around it. A casual Vietnamese rice shop, it pairs that base with grilled meats and sides that do the real work, including steamed pork cake and fried tofu skin stuffed with shrimp. Fresh minced bird's eye chiles sit on every table instead of a bottle, which tells you something about the kitchen's standards.

The pho broth here is light and fragrant with onion and ginger, and the soy-protein brisket has enough chew to make you question your assumptions. This all-vegan Asian restaurant, connected to the Loving Hut network, runs through a long menu of pad Thai, wonton soup, and claypot rice without any of it feeling like a consolation prize. It's a Civic Center lunch spot with real intentions and very reasonable prices.

A rosemary-honey cortado tells you everything about what kind of coffee shop this is. Jadu is a Jamaica Plain cafe pulling Counter Culture espresso alongside masala chai sourced from Boston's own Madhrasi Chai, with seasonal drinks that lean into unexpected flavor combinations. Pastries come from a nearby nut-free bakery, and there's a breakfast and lunch menu to keep you longer than you planned.

Pho Auntie 7 started as a home kitchen before becoming Castro Valley's go-to Vietnamese spot, and the soul of that origin still shows. It's a casual sit-down restaurant where the soups are good but the street food is the reason to linger: crispy banh xeo crepes stuffed with pork and shrimp, and chewy steamed banh beo rice cakes. Wash either down with fresh sugarcane juice or a salty plum soda and you're in no rush to leave.

Pho Thin is a pho shop whose signature move is wok-searing ribeye in garlic before it ever meets the bowl. The broth leans savory rather than the sweet, star-anise-heavy style common around DC, and the noodles are wide and chewy instead of threadlike. The Falls Church outpost of a Hanoi institution, it arrived already pulling crowds. Order the pickled raw garlic that comes to the table and don't leave it untouched.

A casual Vietnamese restaurant in Pittsburgh's Strip District where the walls feature a poster reading "Pho King Delicious," and the kitchen commits to its broth with equal conviction, simmering it for days. The pho comes loaded with options, tripe, meatballs, sliced beef, a solid chicken version, and the grilled plates hold up well enough to make the leftovers argument for you. A good stop before wandering the neighborhood's grocers and shops.

This is a counter-service coffee shop that runs on Vietnamese robusta, the bolder, heavier-hitting cousin of the arabica your usual café leans on. The bánh mì comes stuffed enough that you'll wonder if the menu is a typo, and the seasonal drinks swing from jasmine tea with lychee and blackberry to a passionfruit espresso tonic. It's the rare café where people order lunch first and then remember they also wanted coffee.

A Vietnamese restaurant that gave the North Bay's food scene something to talk about, Simmer runs an expansive menu with serious attention to vegetarian and gluten-free options alongside the classics. The crispy tofu with lemongrass, herbs, and rice noodles is a reason to skip the meat entirely, and the filet mignon phở eases in anyone still finding their footing with the canon. Casual, affordable, and easy to bring everyone to.

Duck is the whole point here, a Little Saigon restaurant in San Jose where the menu circles around one bird and doesn't apologize for it. The duck salad is the thing to order: a towering pile of poached slices, shredded cabbage, banana blossom, fried shallots, and rau răm, all pulled together with a ginger-spiked fish sauce vinaigrette. Most people take it to go, which tells you something about the vibe. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the top Vietnamese spots in the Bay Area.

Voi Cà Phê is a takeout counter in Georgetown that treats Vietnamese coffee like a serious subject, sourcing single-origin beans from Vietnam and brewing them through a phin or an espresso machine. The cà phê sữa đá is the classic, but the pho spice latte, with star anise and coriander seed, is what a pumpkin spice latte would be if it had a passport. There are banh mi too, so one stop covers breakfast and lunch.

Mai Lee is a family-run Vietnamese restaurant in a Brentwood strip, and it has been around forever. The menu runs past 300 numbered, made-to-order dishes, so ordering feels like a long-form exam you can't fail. Regulars will point you to the St. Paul sandwich, a St. Louis oddity involving egg foo young and white bread. Casual, unfussy, and priced so you can try several numbers.

This Lents noodle shop is named after its one big move, the spicy beef soup from central Vietnam, and it sees no reason to hedge. The broth runs meaty, shrimpy, and lemongrass-bright, with collagen-heavy cuts, pork blood cubes, and thick, slippery noodles. A plate of banana blossom, basil, mint, and lime arrives for you to dump in. Eater's list of Portland's best restaurants and food carts includes it. Dine in or call ahead.

Ba Mien is a big, casual Vietnamese dining room out on Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans East, where the menu goes well past the phở-and-spring-rolls starter pack. You can build your own rolls from grilled pork paste, fresh herbs, and crunchy vegetables, or order steamed rice rolls with peanut sauce. Come for breakfast and pair either one with French-dripped coffee and condensed milk, which is how most of the room seems to do it.

Chefs eating on their days off tend to be a reliable signal, and on Mondays and Tuesdays the counter at this compact Vietnamese restaurant on Passyunk fills with exactly that crowd. The kitchen is built around fragrant pho and bún bò Huế, the spicy lemongrass soup from the owner's hometown of Huế. Her son now runs the room alongside her, and his chicken wings have quietly become a reason to visit on their own.

The "clam" dip is made from tofu, the fried fish contains no fish, and somehow none of that feels like a compromise. This vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant in Falls Church is where the chef makes her own faux meats and seafoods from scratch, turning lemongrass noodle soup and papaya salad into fully convincing arguments that the meat was never the point. Devout carnivores tend to figure this out about halfway through the meal.

The cracked-laminate menus at this Vietnamese restaurant in a Phoenix strip mall are entirely on purpose. Fourteen kinds of pho anchor the menu, portions are generous enough to require a to-go container, and the hot coffee with sweetened condensed milk is a good reason to linger. Prices hover around $15, the room is multi-roomed and no-frills, and the com tam dac biet piles broken rice with what feels like the entire menu on one plate.

Huynh is a casual Vietnamese spot in EaDo, the kind where you order a bowl of pho roughly the size of your head and then reconsider your afternoon plans. The menu runs long, with noodle soups, vermicelli bowls, clay pot dishes, egg rolls, and crepes, and it's been a neighborhood fixture forever. Families fill the tables, prices stay friendly, and a second location is headed to Upper Kirby for the less adventurous.

A black wall with the name spelled out in bold greets you at this casual Vietnamese restaurant on East Colonial, where the hanging lanterns and ceiling fans set a mood that's Southeast Asian without being a caricature of one. The cooking is focused and unshowy, the kind that earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand by quietly outrunning places twice its size. Pho, crispy crepes, and simple vegetable plates all arrive tasting like someone actually paid attention.

Tucked deep inside the Eden Center mall, this Vietnamese restaurant operates on the assumption that you came ready to work for it. The staff speaks limited English and menu descriptions don't give much away, but the rice-cake and tapioca-dumpling appetizers, some banana-leaf-wrapped, some chicharrón-crusted with tiny shell-on shrimp, make the ordering process forgiving. The spicy lemongrass noodle soup with rustic meatballs in a rich beef broth is what regulars are usually after.

A flame-toasted banh mi stuffed with pork belly braised in coconut water and chopped mustard greens is as good a reason as any to track down a food cart. Parked at a San Jose spot, Hết Sẩy focuses on Mekong Delta cooking, where the menu shifts weekly and might land on hu tieu with chicken skin and creamy liver or a Vietnamese-style spaghetti seasoned with fish sauce and red vinegar. Every visit teaches you something the previous one didn't.

Kevin's Noodle House is a casual Vietnamese spot on Irving in the Sunset, built around bowls of phở that arrive fast and cost about what a sandwich does. Kid-size portions of the steak, meatball, and chicken versions make it a reliable midweek escape for parents who'd rather not cook. A bowl of hot noodle soup buys roughly five quiet minutes at the table, and that's long enough to finally finish a level of Candy Crush.

Bún bò Huế arrives as tacos here, which tells you everything about the approach. This Vietnamese cafe in South Seattle pairs deep-cut dishes like stir-fried snails in coconut sauce with banana cookie crumble matcha lattes, and somehow neither feels out of place. The bánh xèo comes gasp-inducingly large on a woven basket ringed with herbs. Seattle Met named it one of Seattle's best new restaurants in 2025.

A no-frills Vietnamese lunch spot on the edge of Portsmouth Square, where the best move on a sunny day is to grab takeout and eat in the park while retired neighbors argue card games at the tables nearby. Pho, grilled meats, rice plates, and vermicelli salads are the whole program, exactly as advertised. The spring rolls, fried in rice paper, come out blistered and genuinely airy in a way that's hard to explain until you've had one.

Mood lighting, a contemporary soundtrack, and Vietnamese-influenced food that slides easily into a night out, which is exactly what Peridot is angling for. The ketchup-fried rice, drawn from the chef's childhood, sounds like a gimmick until it arrives and you stop talking. Green papaya salad comes with beef jerky, the grilled seabream is built for sharing, and the cocktails are serious enough to stay for. Book ahead on Tock.

This is a family-run Vietnamese bakery and sandwich counter where the baguettes come out of the oven that same morning and end up wrapped around pâté, pickled vegetables, and lemongrass chicken. The Alameda cafe is the sunnier, tidier sibling to the original, with a few tables and a full coffee bar. It's cheap, quick, and perfect for lunch, assuming you can stop yourself from lecturing a stranger about bread.

Bodard Bistro is a small, casual Vietnamese spot on Bellaire Boulevard, where the dining room doubles as a greenhouse and nobody seems to mind the foliage getting the best seats. The kitchen leans Mekong Delta, so the tamarind-and-pineapple catfish soup shows up next to pork sausage spring rolls and crisp little shrimp pancakes. It's an easy, inexpensive meal, and The Infatuation put it on its Houston Chinatown list.

The open kitchen here sits behind a glass floor with koi swimming beneath it, which sets the tone before the food even arrives. Crustacean is a Vietnamese restaurant that's been a Beverly Hills institution forever, known for garlic noodles and garlic-roasted Dungeness crab that regulars treat as non-negotiable. Chef Helene An works the dining room herself most nights, which is a genuinely rare thing at this price point. Note that the Beverly Hills location closes in late 2026.

Giau is a Vietnamese bar and lounge in Katy Asian Town, a quieter sibling to the Bellaire Boulevard original, lit by neon and a wall sign that puns on Hennessy. Weekends bring a live DJ, and the cocktails come with showmanship, like a pineapple and passion fruit drink crowned with a giant bubble that exists to be popped. Fish sauce wings and shaking beef rice plates keep the late-night snacking from getting dainty.

Hai Cang is a Vietnamese-Chinese seafood house on Bellaire Boulevard where the platters of crab, lobster, and noodles arrive at a scale better suited to a group than a date. The lobster comes wok-fried in dry spices and the Dungeness is fire-red, so napkins are less a courtesy than a survival strategy. Bring a crowd, because the lazy susan has to earn its keep.

Kita Steak & Ribs is a steakhouse run like a family business, which it is, with grill-dad barbecue given a Vietnamese accent. It began in a Hillsboro strip mall with a short menu and a loyal following packed into very little room, and it has since moved into nicer digs in Beaverton. The menu has grown a bit, but the beef is still the point. Eater lists it among Portland's best restaurants and food carts.

The broth at this Chinatown pho shop has been going since 1987, and regulars treat it accordingly, never opening a menu. A sprawling Southern Vietnamese lineup covers nearly 60 dishes, but the namesake bowl, available in more than two dozen variations, is the reason most people brave the line. The imperial egg rolls, crisp and stuffed with pork and wood ear mushrooms, make a strong case for arriving hungry enough to order both.

A tofu production company that sprouted a deli counter, Thanh Son is the rare spot where the house-made soy milk and fresh tofu, sold by the pound, upstage everything else on offer. The banh mi are built to order on house-baked bread, and the glass case of che, Vietnamese sweet dessert, stacks up a rainbow of tapioca, jellies, and beans in combinations that take a minute to decode. Bring restraint, or at least a spoon.

Thim Hing is a cash-only bánh mì counter where people leave carrying sandwiches by the armload, as if provisioning for a long voyage. Around lunch, trunks get loaded with plastic bags of the stuff. The baguette runs rail-thin and loud when you bite it, which means more crunch per square inch than the usual loaf. Bring cash, order for everyone you know, and expect to be the slowest person in line.

Five floors above Central Square, this modern Vietnamese restaurant rewards the climb with vintage furniture the team refurbished themselves and a room that feels like someone's very stylish living room went rogue. The cooking runs to turmeric rice with squab and lemongrass carpaccio, and the cocktail list has a gin drink with salted lime and tingly pepper that earns its place on the bill.

The banh mi here come in wax-paper egg-roll bags, which tells you something about the register. This Elmhurst sandwich shop keeps the classics, pâté and head cheese, while slipping in Korean bulgogi alongside them. The fries arrive heaped with pickled daikon, cilantro, jalapeño, and a green sauce borrowed from Peruvian chicken spots. Julie Wong has said she wanted to embrace Queens as a melting pot, and the menu takes that brief literally.

The curry is the reason regulars keep coming back, which surprises people who think of Vietnam and curry in the same sentence as a typo. This strip-mall Vietnamese spot in Aurora has been serving pho and homey staples forever, but the house curry, built on madras powder, coconut milk, and a heavy hand with lemongrass, lands somewhere all its own. Nothing Thai about it, nothing Indian, just a dish that makes the menu feel longer than most.

The broth simmers for twelve hours, which tells you everything about how seriously this Vietnamese noodle shop takes its pho. Sixteen variations run from the classic stacked beef bowl to seafood versions with shrimp and fish balls. The room is no-frills and the portions are generous, the kind of place where the soup does the talking and nobody feels the need to narrate it.