The Best Vietnamese Food in New York, Dish by Dish
Pho from Baxter Street to Yorkville, Huế soup in Sunset Park, bánh mì on bread baked in a basement, and the snails, crab soups and egg coffee that New York has only lately learned to love. Here is what to order, and where.
24 dishes · 21 kitchens
New York's Vietnamese food spent decades on a few blocks of Baxter Street and Eighth Avenue in Sunset Park: pho houses with numbered menus, bánh mì counters with a line at noon, cash in your pocket. Those places are still here, and still worth the trip. What has changed is everything around them. In the last few years the city has gained a Michelin-recognized bánh mì and rice-roll shop on Third Avenue, a Hanoi street-platter restaurant on Forsyth Street with a bakery next door, a central Vietnamese prix fixe on East 4th Street, and a Dallas kitchen that brought bún riêu and egg coffee to Second Avenue.
The way to eat through it is by dish. Northern pho is clear and austere, finished with scallion and little else; the southern style arrives with a plate of herbs, sprouts and lime. Bún bò Huế, from the old imperial city in the middle of the country, is red with chili and sharp with lemongrass. Bún chả is Hanoi's lunch of grilled pork in a sweet-sour broth. A bánh mì is only as good as its baguette, and the best ones here are baked on site.
The picks below are grouped by what you are craving. Several of the best counters are cash-only and some dishes are weekend specials or seasonal, so check the official pages before a special trip.
Pho, north and south
Hanoi's clear beef broth and Saigon's herb-heaped bowl — plus a couple of New York liberties with short rib.
- 01
Phở Hà Nội with oxtail and marrow
Hanoi House · EAST VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
The northern style, simmered for a day and finished only with cilantro, scallion and red onion. Add bone marrow if you want it richer.
- 02
#3 phở đặc biệt
Thái Sơn · CHINATOWN, MANHATTAN
The Baxter Street classic: thin-sliced beef, brisket, tripe and tendon, a pot of hot tea, and a round table for the group. The #1 is the same bowl, bigger.
- 03
Beef pho
Di An Di · GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN
Greenpoint's precise, northern-leaning bowl, in a plant-filled room a few minutes from the East River.
- 04
Madame Phở with short rib
Madame Vo · EAST VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
A broth that balances beef against warm spice, with a bone-in short rib added on top for very hungry diners.
- 05
UES Pho with smoked short rib
Ly Ly Vietnam Cookhouse · UPPER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN
A long-simmered broth crowned with a whole smoked short rib — the Upper East Side's reason not to ride downtown.
Noodle soups beyond pho
Huế's chili-red beef soup, crab-and-tomato bún riêu, and a clam broth for cold days.
- 06
Bún bò Huế
Thanh Đa · SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN
Lemongrass-sharp, chili-red and a little sour, with pork, thick round noodles, basil and lime. Eat it at one of the few tables — it does not travel.
- 07
Bún riêu
Ngon Vietnamese Kitchen · EAST VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
The crab-and-tomato noodle soup, added to the menu specifically for New York. The bún bò Huế is on the same menu if you want both.
- 08
Bún hến (shore clam and dill soup)
Mắm · CHINATOWN, MANHATTAN
A brothy, dill-scented clam noodle soup — best in the cooler months, when the menu turns toward it.
Bánh mì and the bakeries behind them
Bread first. The best sandwiches start with a baguette that shatters, and two of these kitchens bake their own.
- 09
Bánh mì heo quay (roast pork belly)
Phê · CHINATOWN, MANHATTAN
Baguettes baked in the basement and toasted in batches, wrapped around crackling pork belly and chili sauce. The chả lụa version with house pâté is the classic alternative, and the coffee counter — black phin, or fish-sauce caramel — has its own line.
- 10
O.G. bánh mì
Bánh Anh Em · EAST VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
Three house-made cold cuts on a baguette from the steam oven downstairs. The smaller Hải Phòng pâté sandwich, with garlicky hot sauce, is the second order.
- 11
#1 classic bánh mì
Ba Xuyên · SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN
Pâté, ham, head cheese, pork roll and teriyaki pork under plenty of mayo, from Sunset Park's Eighth Avenue counter. Cash only; eat it in the park with the harbor view.
- 12
#4 chả lụa bánh mì
Bánh Mì Saigon Bakery · CHINATOWN, MANHATTAN
Silky pork roll, cucumber and pickled carrot on an untoasted baguette, with jalapeños if you ask. The #1 barbecue pork is a close second.
- 13
Classic bánh mì with pork floss
Bánh Mì Cô Út · CHINATOWN, MANHATTAN
Three cold cuts, pâté, pork belly and pork floss in one sandwich, from a cash-only Elizabeth Street window.
- 14
Classic bánh mì with caramelized pork
Summer · ELMHURST, QUEENS
Caramelized crumbled pork and buttery chả lụa on a flaky roll — the best bánh mì in Elmhurst, from a counter with a much longer menu.
Rolls, platters and rice
Steamed rice sheets, tableside catfish, Huế's small cakes and the grilled pork that makes bún chả.
- 15
Bún chả Hanoi
Saigon Social · LOWER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN
Grilled pork patties and pork belly in a sweet-sour dipping broth with vermicelli and herbs. If you order one thing at Saigon Social, this is it.
- 16
Bánh cuốn (weekends)
Bánh Vietnamese Shop House · UPPER WEST SIDE, MANHATTAN
Steamed rice crepes rolled around minced pork, on the weekend lunch specials alongside pâté chaud. Weekend lunch also means a shorter wait.
- 17
Bánh ướt chồng and chả cá Lã Vọng
Bánh Anh Em · EAST VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
A build-your-own stack of rice sheets with a spread of fillings, and turmeric catfish finished tableside over dill and scallions with mắm tôm.
- 18
The Huế set, with bánh bột lọc
Cô Lạc · EAST VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
Small bites from the old imperial city, including translucent tapioca dumplings steamed in banana leaf, as part of the central Vietnamese prix fixe.
- 19
Short rib fried rice
District Saigon · ASTORIA, QUEENS
Caramelized beef, tomatoes and chili-garlic sauce through the rice, under a sunset mural on Astoria's Broadway.
- 20
Caramelized fish sauce pork ribs
High Lúa · WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN
Sticky, salty-sweet ribs with corn tossed in salted duck egg — the plates to share around a bowl of pho in Williamsburg.
Snails and drinking food
In Vietnam, ốc — snails and shellfish — is what you eat with beer on a plastic stool. New York has two very different takes.
- 21
Ốc bươu nhồi thịt (stuffed snails)
Mắm · CHINATOWN, MANHATTAN
Apple snails packed with herbed pork sausage, on a menu built for low stools and sidewalk tables. Order them alongside the bún đậu đặc biệt, the Hanoi platter of tofu, vermicelli, pork and fermented shrimp paste the restaurant is built around.
- 22
Snails in garlic and tamarind butter
Ha's Snack Bar · LOWER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN
The candlelit Broome Street version, with baguette for the butter and an eclectic wine list instead of beer. Add oysters with green chili.
Coffee and sweets
Phin-dripped coffee, Hanoi's egg coffee and the house-made syrups of a new generation of cafés.
- 23
Cà phê sữa đá and pandan latte
Lê Phin · EAST VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
Slow-dripped phin coffee over condensed milk, or a latte with house-made pandan syrup, from a former coffee grader's bright East 10th Street café.
- 24
Cà phê trứng (egg coffee)
Ngon Vietnamese Kitchen · EAST VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
Hanoi's egg coffee, whipped yolk and condensed milk over strong coffee. When the kitchen has it, follow it with sữa chua nếp cẩm, yogurt with purple sticky rice.
Every kitchen here was confirmed open as of 2026-10-13. Menus change — confirm a dish is on before you make the trip.