The Best Places in Vietnam

Each of the seven floors here is dedicated to a different emerging Vietnamese visual artist, so checking into this boutique hotel means sleeping inside someone's actual vision. Exposed pipes and salvaged antiques share space with original paintings and sculptures, and no two rooms feel quite the same. It's a Michelin Selected Hotel, small enough that the art doesn't feel decorative, and just self-aware enough to get away with it.

The design concept here borrows from both Swedish minimalism and French restraint, and somehow the two don't fight. This small hotel sits inside Hanoi's Old Quarter, one of the louder, more relentless neighborhoods on earth, and the interiors respond by going almost conspicuously quiet: natural textures, soft light, nothing competing for attention. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels. Think of it as somewhere to return to after the city has made its point.

The lobby takes its design cues from the Kingsman films: dark wood, leather, and the vague sense that the man at the next table is filing a report. This boutique hotel on Dong Du Street sits steps from Bach Dang Wharf and a short walk from Ben Thanh Market, with Saigon Centre close enough for a rainy afternoon. Rooms come with minibars and work desks, and the upper categories add a bathtub for anyone who takes their spy fantasies seriously.

Deep crimson walls, arched headboards, and velvet accents give this central Saigon hotel the moody atmosphere of a good bottle of red, which is precisely the inspiration. It sits a few minutes from Notre Dame Cathedral, with a private onsen available as a wellness add-on, a rooftop cocktail bar named for drifting, and a restaurant leaning toward lighter, wellness-minded plates. Not your average Ho Chi Minh City bolthole.

A modernist tower on the Saigon River whose balconies spill with plants in a pattern that looks more grown than designed. This luxury hotel in District 1 fills its rooms with hardwood floors, stained glass, and wrought-iron details borrowed from local homes, with the better ones opening onto balconies above the city hum. There's a rooftop pool, a spa, a bar, a coffeehouse, and a restaurant that leans on Vietnamese flavors.

Seventy-three villas spread across 240 acres of a secluded Vietnamese peninsula, and the place still manages to feel quiet. This Michelin two-key beach resort leans into hand-crafted, sun-bleached aesthetics that keep the five-star comfort from feeling stiff, with styles drawn from indigenous housing forms. Most villas have plunge pools, some face the beach directly, and three restaurants means you're unlikely to leave for dinner. The excursion list runs from temple tours to open water, naturally.

A boutique hotel on leafy Trần Phú Street, just west of the Old Quarter, where the rooftop infinity pool gives you the Hanoi skyline without the scooter soundtrack. The 60 rooms run to bold colors and modern bathrooms, with a spa, a gym, and an in-house tailor for anyone whose luggage didn't survive the trip. Temple of Literature and the lake are a short walk; the street food is even closer.

Blonde wood, shoji-style screens, and woven lounge chairs give this boutique hotel in District 1 the calm vocabulary of a ryokan dropped into central Saigon. The rooftop pool sits above the street noise, and a sauna and steam room handle the aftermath of a long day on foot. The Saigon Opera House is a short walk away. Selected by the Michelin Guide, it is a composed, considered base for the city.

Crystal chandeliers and curved velvet seating in District 1, which feels like an extravagant amount of glamour for a boutique hotel this far from the French Quarter. La Siesta Premium is the Ho Chi Minh City property of Elegance Hospitality Group, a Vietnamese chain that commits hard to the European aesthetic, dark hardwood floors and latticed cabinetry included. A rooftop Sky Bar handles the skyline duties, and the Michelin Guide has it among its Selected Hotels.

A boutique hotel on the edge of Turtle Lake in District 3, designed as a contemporary take on Saigon's old French colonial streetscape. White marble, herringbone parquet, and duck-egg cabinetry keep the rooms quietly considered without tipping into theme-park territory. Suites stretch to 87 square meters with city-facing balconies. The Palm restaurant sits right at the water, useful for when you want a view that does most of the work.

A boutique hotel in Hoan Kiem where the mattresses are roughly the height of a small child and the color scheme reads like someone handed Toulouse-Lautrec a paint bucket, which is fitting, since the bar downstairs is named for him. The colonial bones get a French polish throughout, and the absinthe ritual at La Fée Verte is performed with the solemnity it deserves. Bold, deliberate, and not remotely interested in blending in.

A boutique hotel in District 3 that leans hard into French Indochina glamour, the 1930s kind, with Art Deco touches on the facade and interiors that feel closer to period reconstruction than design homage. The owner's art collection runs through every room and corridor. Up on the 24th floor is a rooftop bar with sweeping city views, and the dining options range from a Vietnamese street-market-inspired restaurant to a modern European kitchen.

Hand-drawn murals of Saigonese street scenes cover the walls of the guestrooms at this boutique hotel in Ba Son, where French colonial facades still share the block with newer developments. The rooftop pool looks over District 1, and Ben Thanh Market, the Opera House, and Nguyen Hue Walking Street are all walkable. A ground-floor restaurant handles both local and international menus depending on the hour. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

The JW Marriott sits where Hai Ba Trung meets Le Duan, a short walk from the opera house and the old colonial landmarks that Ho Chi Minh City keeps polishing. It's a full-service luxury hotel, so expect the broad lobby, the attentive staff, and rooms that insulate you from the city's cheerful chaos whenever you need a break. Then leave, because the street food outside is the point, and no minibar competes.

A Guinness-recognized woodblock painting anchors the lobby of this heritage-leaning hotel a short walk from Hoan Kiem Lake. Dong Ho and Hang Trong folk art traditions show up in the murals and custom furnishings, giving the rooms something to look at beyond the minibar. The rooftop bar and restaurant put you above Hanoi's noise at a comfortable remove, which turns out to be exactly the right distance.

A boutique hotel on Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa where guests pick their aesthetic before they pick their room: French-Vietnamese classic, modern luxury, or a glamping-style tent setup with views of the greenery. Warm wood, neutral tones, and deliberate lighting run through all three. The dark bar with teal accents is the kind of moody side room you'd return to after dinner. Selected by the Michelin Guide, it's part of the La Passion collection, which leans on local heritage rather than the usual boutique-hotel formula.

A 28-room boutique hotel in central Saigon where the Japanese aesthetic isn't a mood board exercise but a through-line: bonsai garden in the lobby, individually painted walls in each room, balconies over the neighborhood. The rooftop bar pairs cocktails with vintage vinyl, and downstairs an omakase restaurant runs courses on antique tableware. A lot going on for a small building, all of it quietly considered.

A shuttle boat ferries guests across the Saigon River to the city six times a day, which tells you a lot about this boutique hotel's relationship with the chaos on the other bank. All 23 suites are individual in layout, some with four-poster beds and balcony river views. The patio restaurant does traditional Vietnamese with a long wine list. The outdoor saltwater pool quietly makes the case for never leaving.

Rooms start on the 49th floor, which tells you most of what you need to know about this hotel. Vinpearl Landmark 81 occupies the tallest building in Vietnam, and its 223 rooms all come with floor-to-ceiling windows pointed at Ho Chi Minh City sprawling below. The infinity pool and spa sit on the 47th floor, the bar a floor above that. For anyone who finds ground level insufficiently dramatic, this is the logical conclusion.

Some of the bungalows here sit directly on West Lake, reached by gently curving bridges, with the 800-year-old Golden Lotus Pagoda keeping watch from the shore. This InterContinental hotel trades French Colonial grandeur for contemporary rooms with wooden-slatted sliding doors and lantern-hung beds, most with lake-facing balconies. A cocktail pavilion lives on the bridge itself, which is either romantic or excessive depending on your mood, and the city center is ten minutes away.

Dark mahogany, emerald walls, and softly glowing orb lights set the mood before the food even arrives. Gia is a fine dining tasting menu restaurant near Văn Miếu, where the kitchen runs a twelve-course journey through Vietnamese cooking reshaped by the team's years in Australia, the UAE, Thailand, and Singapore. The flavors are rooted at home; the technique has clearly been everywhere else first.

A5 wagyu, and nothing else, is the policy at this Japanese yakiniku restaurant, where the menu commits fully to beef from Japanese black cattle and asks you to do the same. The omakase format works through more than seven preparations, including wagyu as sushi, each cut singed tableside to a barely-there crust over pink. It is, by design, a place for people who consider meat a serious subject.

Furnished balconies facing the Saigon River give this boutique hotel its best argument for the Indochine aesthetic, all rattan and colonial details done with enough breathing room to feel like a fantasy rather than a theme park. It sits about fifteen minutes from the center in An Phu, quieter than you'd expect. The Ô Spa handles decompression, a rooftop bar handles sundowners, and an Asian-European restaurant covers the rest. Michelin Guide selected.

A tower resort on Phu Quoc's Long Beach where rooftop gardens and palms are less decoration than structural argument, the whole property angled to keep the sea in view from almost every corner. With 459 rooms, this is a full-scale luxury resort, family-friendly and sprawling, set against an island where more than half the land sits inside a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. The kind of place where the jungle does a lot of the heavy lifting.

White-sand beach right outside the door, a Greg Norman golf course nearby, and day trips to Cham Island for snorkeling or fresh seafood from the fishermen who live there. This full-service resort sits on Da Nang's coast with 357 rooms, all of them including a balcony, marble bath, and rain shower at the base level. Suites run up to 1,800 square feet with ocean views. Multiple restaurants, a full spa, and a city that's quietly become a reason to linger in central Vietnam.

A short boat ride from Nha Trang is the price of admission here, and the gulf between mainland and peninsula is the whole point. This luxury resort plants 58 private villas, each with plunge pool and outdoor garden shower, into a lush, mountainous bay. Hilltop villas do exactly what they promise, and the Presidential Villa is a private mountainside compound. The Six Senses spa and multiple restaurants ensure no one suffers through the seclusion. It holds a Michelin Key.

The journey in starts at a 19th-century iron bridge in Old Saigon, where a speedboat picks you up and carries you 25 minutes upriver to a forested stretch of shoreline. This intimate luxury resort arranges its suites and villas, all natural wood and stone with private sun decks, through tropical gardens with enough space between them that you forget neighbors exist. Butler service runs around the clock, and the pool villas come with their own plunge pools.

A Michelin Key resort on Vietnam's southeastern coast, Azerai Ke Ga Bay comes from Adrian Zecha, the man who invented Aman, so the aesthetic instincts are exactly what you'd expect: modern, spare, locally inflected, and polished within an inch of its life. Three pool areas, an immersive spa, yoga, and al fresco dining with uninterrupted sea views. The rooms are faultless at every level; some have private pools.

The ornate indoor pool on the seventh floor, styled in French Indochine excess, gives you a sense of what this MGallery hotel is doing in the Vietnamese mountain town of Sapa. The architecture is the personality here, not just the backdrop, and the Nuages spa carries the same weight. It holds a Michelin Key, which feels about right for a place that manages genuine luxury without forgetting it's perched in the highlands.

Sitting on an islet in the Hau river and reachable only by boat, this Azerai resort earns its remove. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key. Adrian Zecha, the Aman founder, shaped the luxury boutique hotel as a genre, and his touch shows here in rooms that are thoroughly comfortable without tipping into showiness. An infinity pool, spa, yoga pavilion, and excursions to the Cai Rang floating market fill the time between arrivals and departures.

Private pool villas are the only accommodation Six Senses does, no high-rises, no bare-bones bungalows, just teak-lined rooms open to the sea breeze on a near-unreachable Vietnamese island. Fifty villas come with butler service, canopy beds, and a studied lack of clutter; the four-bedroom duplex sleeps an entire extended family comfortably. Cooking classes and moonlit beach dinners are on offer for anyone who wants the full performance. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A 20th-century villa tucked far enough from the tourist trail that you'll need a cab, An's Saigon is an innovative Vietnamese restaurant spread across a garden, a lounge, and an eight-seat chef's table where the menu shifts into something more personal. The kitchen leans on artful plating and creative riffs on familiar flavours, with each course leaning into Vietnamese culture and nature as loose inspiration.

A blonde wooden sushi counter on the second floor of a Hanoi hotel, with chefs working in full view, sets the tone for this Japanese restaurant. The menu runs from kaiseki to sashimi, and the omakase counter draws regulars willing to plan ahead. Lunch is the quiet move for value. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected restaurants, and the team runs the room like they've done this a thousand times.

A Vietnamese restaurant in a crumbling old building on Hang Dieu Street, Bep Prime pulls from the full breadth of the country's regional cooking with a clear soft spot for Hanoi. The kitchen's signature pigeon and mushroom hot pot arrives in a bird cage, which is exactly as theatrical as it sounds. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected restaurants. Book ahead; the room is small and the regulars know it.

Chả cá, grilled catfish rubbed with turmeric until it turns a burnished gold, is essentially the whole menu here, and that's a fine way to run a restaurant. This family-run Hanoi spot has been at it forever, with cheerful murals, checkered tablecloths, and service that moves with purpose. Fish spring rolls and fish soup round things out if you want to make an afternoon of it.

The terracotta arched entrance and ornate facade, drawn from Buddhist and Champa traditions, set expectations before you've even sat down. Cồ Đàm is a vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant spread across four floors, though the ground-floor pond and stone Buddha make a case for lingering there. Two set menus only, both modern takes on Vietnamese classics, with plating that suggests the kitchen takes presentation as seriously as flavor.

A café tucked inside a two-floor clothing boutique on Phung Khac Khoan Street, where the menu runs to European cooking with Vietnamese touches and plating that matches the surroundings for effort. Sit in the glass-roofed garden room or climb to the mezzanine for something quieter. The pho broth made with consommé and roasted duck breast is the dish that earns its own conversation. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

A steak and seafood restaurant on the second floor of the Sheraton, with floor-to-ceiling views over West Lake that do a lot of heavy lifting on a humid Hanoi evening. The menu roams freely, pulling beef and seafood from whichever hemisphere is having a good season. The surf-and-turf format is the move here, with premium cuts alongside fresh seafood. It's a hotel restaurant, polished and unhurried, and the lake view makes it feel less like one.

Velvet curtains, a chandelier, and foie gras on the menu: La Villa is a formal French restaurant that seems entirely unbothered by its Ho Chi Minh City address. The kitchen leans into the classics, and the wine list and cheese trolley hold up their end of the bargain. On warmer evenings, the garden terrace offers a little breathing room from all that starched Gallic dignity.

French fine dining inside the Sofitel Legend Metropole, where the crystal chandeliers and blue velvet banquettes have survived every renovation the twentieth century could throw at them. An old-school institution, the kind where lobster bisque arrives from a guéridon and crêpe Suzette is flambéed tableside with a seriousness that feels entirely earned. The tasting menu threads in quiet Vietnamese notes, which keeps things from feeling like a museum piece.

A Lyon-trained French chef doing modern European fine dining in a quietly elegant room on Le Thanh Ton, the street Ho Chi Minh City has quietly handed over to this sort of thing. Private dining rooms make it a natural choice when someone has news to share over several courses. The cooking leans into precision and presentation, with classic French foundations pulled in a cleaner, more contemporary direction.

Indochine-meets-Art-Deco interiors set a relaxed tone at this contemporary Vietnamese restaurant, where the chef draws on the central region where he grew up. Dishes from that tradition arrive with a refined, creative edge, and the grilled abalone with spring onion oil and fish sauce makes a strong case for ordering from the sea. The banana ice cream with coconut milk and crushed peanuts is a quietly satisfying way to finish.