Every June, the Michelin Guide quietly reshuffles the map of where to eat in Vietnam — and for 2026, five brand-new names landed in Ho Chi Minh City’s Michelin Selected list. Not the starred fine-diners, not the street-food Bib Gourmands, but the “Selected” tier: the places Michelin’s inspectors flag as genuinely worth your time, across every price point.
What makes this year’s five so interesting is their range. A zero-waste plant-based kitchen sits on the same list as a Hue eatery that’s been feeding the same families for decades. If you want to understand why Saigon has a real claim to the best food in Vietnam, you could do worse than eat your way through these five. Here’s what each one is, and why it made the cut.
NÔM — a tasting menu that travels the whole country
On Trần Nhật Duật Street in Tân Định, NÔM does something ambitious: its tasting menu runs like a journey down the map, opening in the North, moving through Central Vietnam, and closing on a dessert inspired by the South. Familiar dishes arrive reimagined — an elegant, many-layered bún bò Huế, a rich fish soup lifted with herb oil and a spoonful of caviar. The room itself is built as a set of “mini-museums,” dotted with traditional handicrafts, so the meal doubles as a walk through Vietnamese culture.
It clearly landed: chef Chris Fong took home Michelin’s brand-new Opening of the Year Award for 2026. If you want one meal that argues for Vietnamese cuisine as serious, storytelling fine dining, this is it.
Tales by Chapter — the plant-based kitchen that also earned a Green Star
The most quietly radical newcomer, Tales by Chapter on Nguyễn Thành Ý Street didn’t just make the Selected list — it simultaneously joined Vietnam’s small Michelin Green Star community for sustainability. The menu is fully plant-based and seasonal, built around a closed-loop system: produce comes from a partner eco-farm in Đà Lạt and the restaurant’s own rooftop garden, kitchen trimmings are fermented into mushroom garum and corn koji, and organic waste is composted back into the soil. Diners are pulled into the process through installations and a seed-matching game.
For the growing number of travelers who want the best food in Ho Chi Minh City to also be responsible food, this is the address to book. It’s proof that sustainable dining here has moved well past salad-and-good-intentions into genuine fine-dining territory.
Sóno — modern technique, deep Vietnamese roots
Out on Nguyễn Văn Hưởng Street in An Khánh, Sóno has been building a following since it opened in 2022. Chef Kiên Phan’s cooking pairs modern technique with a real reverence for Vietnamese culture — dishes that feel contemporary and precise without losing the flavors they’re built on. It’s the kind of place that shows where a new generation of Saigon chefs is heading: outward-looking in method, firmly local in soul.
Apero — the Italian curveball
Not everything on the list is Vietnamese, and that’s part of the point. Apero, with its open kitchen, makes the case for Saigon as a genuinely international eating city. The cooking is rustic Italian built on handmade pasta — Michelin singles out the rich, crispy-bacon carbonara with plenty of parmesan as the thing to order, before you finish on a homemade tiramisu. A reminder that the best food in Ho Chi Minh City isn’t only Vietnamese food done well; it’s also everyone else’s food done with real care.
Quán Ăn Ngự Bình — the decades-old Hue eatery that got the nod
And then there’s the one that matters most, if you ask us. Tucked into the old Nguyễn Văn Trỗi apartment quarters in Phú Nhuận, Quán Ăn Ngự Bình has been open for decades, feeding generations of regulars in a warm, unfussy family setting. No tasting menu, no concept — just Hue home cooking done properly. Michelin’s inspectors singled out the bún bò Huế, its beef tender in a clean, light broth, while bánh bèo and nem nướng land on nearly every table.
This is the quiet lesson buried in the 2026 list: the best food in Vietnam has never been only about ambition or technique. Sometimes it’s a family that’s simply cooked the same dishes, beautifully, for thirty years — and finally got a global stamp of recognition for it.
What this year’s list tells you about eating in Saigon
Look at these five together and a picture forms. In a single Michelin category you’ve got a country-spanning tasting menu, a zero-waste plant-based fine-diner, a modern-Vietnamese newcomer, a rustic Italian trattoria, and a decades-old Hue canteen. That spread — high and low, local and global, cutting-edge and deeply traditional — is exactly what makes Saigon such a rewarding city to eat in.
The smartest way to use this list isn’t to treat it as a ranking. It’s to pick two that pull in opposite directions — say, a NÔM tasting menu one night and a bowl of bún bò Huế at Ngự Bình the next — and let the contrast show you the full range of what this city can do. Book the fine-dining spots ahead through the Michelin Guide app; for Ngự Bình, just turn up hungry.
Frequently asked questions
Which new restaurants joined the Michelin Selected list in Ho Chi Minh City in 2026? Five: NÔM, Tales by Chapter, Sóno, Apero, and Quán Ăn Ngự Bình. They range from plant-based fine dining to a decades-old Hue family eatery.
What is a Michelin Selected restaurant? It’s the Michelin Guide’s recommendation for a restaurant with genuinely high-quality food, below the Star and Bib Gourmand tiers. In Vietnam it spans everything from casual local eateries to ambitious contemporary kitchens.
Which of the new spots is best for sustainable dining? Tales by Chapter, which also earned a 2026 Michelin Green Star for its zero-waste, fully plant-based approach — some of the best food in Ho Chi Minh City for conscious travelers.
Do I need to book these restaurants? For the fine-dining names like NÔM and Tales by Chapter, yes — reserve ahead. Ngự Bình is a walk-in family eatery.
The bottom line
Michelin’s five new Selected picks for 2026 aren’t a “best of” list so much as a snapshot of a city that refuses to sit still. From a rooftop-grown vegan tasting menu to a bowl of Hue noodles served the same way for decades, they capture why the best food in Ho Chi Minh City — and arguably the best food in Vietnam — is found by moving between the ambitious and the humble, sometimes on the same day.
