Anan Saigon: Placement, Proximity, and Wet Markets
A visit to Ho Chi Minh City's first Michelin star.
The giant SUV muscled its way through a lively wet market street that, by any reasonable standard in morality or urban planning, should have been pedestrian-only. Dying of embarrassment, I bolted out of the car and immediately speedwalked several meters off in another direction in an attempt to not make it look like I was here for the expensive dinner at the fancy restaurant. Of course, this only succeeded in making me look both rich and stupid.
Once I’d sufficiently walked off my embarrassment I circled back to see what I was dealing with.
Anan is situated right in the middle of Saigon’s oldest wet market, Chợ Cũ. It’s modestly sized, the length of about one city block, occupied mostly by fruit and vegetable vendors. Folks lean over fluorescent blue plastic chairs and talk, eat, and conduct business some ten meters away from the city’s first Michelin-starred restaurant. I really like this, and I hope it doesn’t come off as voyeuristic for me to say that. Like, wow, this is where the common folk eat 😍🤳🏼.
It’s more that I appreciate when a city is in dialogue with itself, and Anan does not muscle its way in for space — its neon-lit signage is unobtrusive and easy enough to miss if you aren’t looking for it. Vendors that have been operating here for generations go about business as usual around it. Beyond my gigantic SUV, the street isn’t occupied with too much traffic while they move produce or board up their shops, and I wonder if the restaurant sources anything directly from here as well.
I approach the restaurant to a vacant host stand stationed outside, right beside the door. I try it, peeking halfway in before a team member rushes in from the back, menus in hand – “Can you wait a minute please?”
“Oop! Yeah.” The door shuts in my face. To her credit, it did literally take her just a minute to retrieve me from the street. And there’s an obvious reason she wanted me to wait outside – Anan is situated in a classical Vietnamese tube house, a long and narrow building taller than it is wide – so the restaurant is divided across two floors, and when you step in, it is immediately into the dining room among the other guests.
I’m led up to the second floor and am given my seat along with the menu. Anan offers two tasting, vegetarian, and à la carte menus, which I find quite impressive because that seems logistically much harder to juggle than a singular tasting menu.
I waffled between whether I wanted to do tasting or à la carte for a while thanks to lukewarm online reviews, many of which claimed that the tasting menu wasn’t worth it. I almost played it safe and chose the à la carte menu for this reason, but the concept is what ultimately pulled me in – Vietnamese street food rendered through fine dining. There are two tasting menus to choose from, the Sài Gòn tasting menu (8 courses) and Chef’s tasting menu (10 courses). I chose the Sài Gòn menu, which specifically touts itself as a modern interpretation of Vietnamese street food.
A quick disclaimer: I’m not an expert on Vietnamese cuisine, so I’m still learning what’s classic, what’s innovative, and what’s just being rendered more expensively. It’s the same uncertainty I had with my dinner at Den. In lacking familiarity with kaiseki, I had a harder time understanding what was truly boundary-pushing and what was simply being executed beautifully.
I bring this up because I remember seeing frustrations in online reviews that the food was too familiar, merely being made with premium ingredients that justified its high prices. That you could make something similar at home. I don’t want to delegitimize those grievances, but they did make me chuckle, because Chicagoans can also be disrespectfully allergic to pretension in the exact same way.
And there’s another question hovering at the back of my mind as I walk in: I am no longer in Tokyo, the most Michelin-distinguished city in the world. I am in Ho Chi Minh City, where the guide’s presence is much newer and arrives, as these things often do, with destination partners, tourism ambition, and institutional momentum attached. So yes, I’m pressure-testing the standard a little as well. How does a star read here, in a newer Michelin landscape?
Is Anan good, groundbreaking, or just expensive? I’m not the authority to answer that definitively, but it did become the lens through which I approached the meal.
The Food
Scallop & Pomelo Tart
We open the tasting menu with the quintessential fine dining scallop dish, very classically presented. It was fresh and delicious, but I also kind of forgot about the flavors the moment I was done with it. 7/10
Le Petit Banh Mi
This dish is more interesting than the first one, both conceptually and flavor-wise. The sea urchin pate is great, and I like the crispiness of the hollow baguette. The pickled carrot reminds me of home – it tastes exactly like torshi. I do find it a little hokey that I’m staring down at Cường’s face printed on the wrapper while I’m eating this, but I’ll let it slide for his career pivot out of investment banking. 8/10
Fresh Spring Rolls
A VERY nice bite. The fermented anchovy is awesome and does the heavy lifting to bring a unique flavor to the roll. That bite was more interesting than the accompanying yellowtail bite, but both were still pretty good. It’s just a fancy spring roll, but it’s a very delicious fancy spring roll. 9/10
Bún Chả Bourdain
Just phenomenal. This is delicious, evocative, beautifully presented, and difficult to fold together — I should be used to wrapping leaves as an Iraqi, but I’ve always hated dolma. It’s the best bite so far, and tragically, it’s gatekept behind the tasting menus. I’ve never had a jasmine beer before either — that was interesting as hell. 10/10
Bưởi Pomelo
I notice the solo diner next to me sipping on something pink. I like pink, so my attention is piqued. I glance at the menu. I glance at his drink. I glance back down at the menu.
“Excuse me, what’s that?”
“Not sure, it’s a part of the drink pairing.”
“Give me your menu.”
It’s a Bưởi Pomelo mocktail, and my eyes did not deceive me — pomelo, Vietnamese coriander, calamansi, and fish sauce sound like an incredible combo. I flag the waiter down and ask if I can have one. He goes to deliberate with the kitchen because it’s technically only part of the tasting menu. Five minutes later he reappears with my drink in hand. Rejoice!
It tastes bad.
As in, it tastes like fish sauce, and calamansi, and pomelo…in a glass. Not very harmonious. You can definitely identify every individual component in the drink, and not in a good way. It feels like they’re all individually suspended against each other in some fucked up citrusy lava lamp.
Blue River Prawn
This is not a prawn. This thing is the size of a lobster tail.
It’s good, but the pomelo salad and prawn don’t really feel harmonious with each other. I also would’ve liked for the prawn to come out warmer. I really, really like the pomelo salad, way more than the protein. I’m gaining a greater retrospective appreciation for Indienne’s lobster Goan course. 7.5 for the protein, 9 for the salad.
Hà Nội Turmeric Fish
Absolutely fantastic, and this is coming from a certified turmeric hater. The fish is cooked perfectly and I love the variance in flavor and texture between the salmon and flying fish roe carefully dotted within the sauce. This was really lovely. 9/10
Palate Cleanser
THAT WAS FANTASTIC. THE BEST PALATE CLEANSER I’VE HAD AT A MEAL, AND IT’S THE ONE TIME IN MY LIFE THAT I FORGET TO SNAP A PHOTO BEFORE INHALING IT. Tamarind sorbet, finger lime, choco mint, Sauvignon blanc. 111/10.
Beef Cơm Tấm Sài Gòn
I love how protein-heavy this meal ended up being. Even if the courses were sometimes smaller (above not included), I feel full. This cơm tấm feels like a pretty direct translation of the classic dish, with premium ingredients. 8/10
Chocolate & Viet Coffee Tart
Tastes like something I’d have at a really fancy patisserie — and I mean that complimentarily, it’s delicious. The coconut jelly gives such a nice light contrast! 8/10
Sweets & Trà (Vietnamese Tea)
Truffle is excellent, tea is nice, plum is cute. The coconut ice cream bite was lovely. Yay!! 9/10
Final Impressions
I really enjoyed the meal, and I’m glad I chose this tasting menu. For ~$90 USD, you’re getting a delicious, premium meal whose lineage to the food that inspired it is clearly delineated. The courses were smaller but protein-heavy, and each one felt distinct from the last. I couldn’t tell you whether the menu is truly avant-garde, but dishes like the Bún Chả Bourdain and Le Petit Banh Mi are obviously high-concept; the Cơm Tấm, comparatively, feels more like a direct translation.
Whether or not this will be worth it to you depends on your own familiarity with Vietnamese food and your tolerance for the price point. If you’re undecided, but looking for something really derivative, maybe the à la carte menu is for you: bánh xèo tacos and duck pizza certainly don’t read as classic to me. But in any case, I really do think Anan is worth a visit – just take a good look at the menus beforehand to see what draws you in best.
I can see where people’s gripes about the service come from — it’s the least polished out of any other starred place I’ve been, but I also think they’ve made huge strides to improve since most of those reviews were written. Save for the small hiccup at the door, everything operated smoothly and I had no complaints. And I was prompted for feedback at the end of my meal, which signaled to me that they’re actively working to improve.
I walked in with lowered expectations because of the mixed reviews, and ended up being pleasantly surprised by the meal. I would enthusiastically go back for the other tasting menu or à la carte options. Hell, I made a reservation at sister restaurant Pot Au Pho for the week after — you’ll find a mini review of that experience at the end.
That being said, Anan is tied with Cariño for the weakest one-star tasting menu I’ve done. That isn’t a measure of dislike — I clearly enjoyed the meal — but of shaky cohesion. When I think of the one-star meals that have really blown me away, like at Torrisi or Indienne, I think of dishes whose execution on the plate matched the ambitions. At Anan and Cariño, some dishes felt too patchwork. Like I could taste the seams of the flavors – while individual components could be delicious, the plate as a whole wasn’t properly balanced. I noticed this most strongly in the Blue River Prawn, where the pomelo salad overpowered the protein rather than complementing it, and in the Bưởi Pomelo drink, which tasted like a fucked up citrusy lava lamp.
But I also think Anan makes an earnest effort to stay in conversation with where its food comes from, and I respect that. I love its concept, its setting, and the accessibility across its menu options. There’s continuity, placement, and narrative here — not proof of some perfect ethical relationship to the market outside, but a meaningful refusal to sever the dining room from it completely.
Luxury doesn’t exist without massive effort — the 4 a.m. wholesale markets, the backbreaking labor of harvest, the vendors who make a city edible — even if the theater of fine dining often dedicates itself to making that effort look invisible. It isn’t an ivory castle on the hill. The market is right there: vendors moving produce, stools pulled low to the ground, the visible labor and appetite of the city continuing around the establishment. As for my earlier Michelin question: yes, while being on the lower rung, I do believe it deserves its star. But the better argument for the restaurant is not the institution above it; it’s the street outside.
I don’t mind the ivory castle on the hill, to be clear. You know that I actually covet it. But Anan’s setting aligns with what it’s trying to do – which is to communicate everyday Vietnamese cuisine through fine dining without pretending that the original form needed rescuing. To answer my earlier question, maybe the dishes I had didn’t stray too far from their source intentionally. Just like its setting on the wet market street, maybe that proximity is the point.
Visit Date: May 13th, 2026.
Pot Au Pho
It’s always so funny to me when people see me solo dining and go, “wow, you’re so brave.” I’m glad my supposed confidence inspires others to do the same, but I’m also a bit confused, because it’s dinner, and I’m spending money to be here. I don’t really understand where bravery factors into the equation.
At Pot Au Pho, though, I do feel uncharacteristically self-conscious at the dining counter, where all guests are facing each other. To my left is a glamorous girl around my age with her equally glamorous friends, one of whom owns a basketball team (I keep hearing about basketball in Vietnam. Guess that’s a big thing here). Seated directly across from me is famous pastry chef Susumu Koyama and his entourage, chatting with Chef Cường like old friends – because, well, they probably are. It had the charge of a place where everyone but me seemed to know the host or someone who knew the host. It felt less like being in a restaurant and more like awkwardly stumbling through a mutual friend’s dinner party where said friend has mysteriously disappeared and left you to fend for yourself. Oh god, this is probably how you all feel when you go solo dining. I feel so sorry for y’all.
I get over it pretty quickly, because at the end of the day, I’m here to eat, and dammit if I’m not gonna eat this food better than everyone else. I didn’t really come to Pot au Pho with my reviewer hat on – I just wanted to have some really premium pho. So here’s a quick recounting of that dinner, spared of the analysis.
The one-bite Molecular Pho seemed to harken back to Cường’s Alinea heritage: a familiar dish compressed into a single bite. It was delicious, but if you’re not moved to drop $8 USD on a mouthful of concept, don’t feel bad about skipping it.
I didn’t try any other appetizers, but the group near me weren’t super impressed with them – maybe stick to the pho at this spot, because, thankfully…
…It’s the best pho I’ve ever had. I mean, come on – broth that tastes like an elegant beef consommé, freshly-torched bone marrow on a crispy baguette vehicle, decadent wagyu contrasting against the clarity of the soup, fresh herbs packed in beside a perfectly jammy egg…someone would have had to fuck up tremendously for me to have hated it. It is purely premium pho done with premium ingredients, and it’s fantastic. It isn’t trying to be anything else, and I just loved it. And it costs thirteen US dollars. That’s less than what I’d pay for a basic bowl in Chicago.
The two drinks I had here also impressed me way more than the mocktail I tried at Anan. I was a big fan of the Xá Xị root beer — a Vietnamese sarsaparilla-based soda that’s a bit more herbal than the root beer we know and love in America. The mint-stuffed maraschino cherry garnish was so deliciously Vietnamese as well. Evidently I made it look good enough that Koyama’s friend pointed at my drink and asked for the same. Once he’d received it, I glanced over and signaled a thumbs up with a quizzical look. He gave me a tight smile and nodded, which, in the polite Japanese way I know and love, of course meant that he fucking hated it.
No worries, my ego wasn’t bruised – the American proclivity for drinks that taste like medicine is a very acquired one, and the root beer is a noble beast that cannot be tamed by all.
The last drink I had was the Pho-jito, a gin-based cocktail loaded with pho herbs and spices – literally, the glass is stuffed full of them. It was fantastic. Somehow fresh and spicy simultaneously and tasting incredibly faithful to its namesake – I could’ve ordered another two of them. If you love complex, herby, almost medicinal cocktails like I do, the two I tried will taste like paradise to you.
A funny inverse to Anan: I don’t regret opting for the à la carte menu here. I get the vibe that the tasting menu might have felt excessive and repetitive, but a tiny app, a perfect bowl of pho, and two excellent drinks were just right.
Visit Date: May 21st, 2026.
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