8 Best Restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Industrial chic meets art house tucked away in a colonial villa at this well-loved café. The food is reliably good, offering a range of contemporary café fusion fare including salads, sandwiches, cold cut platters, and Western favorites. Beautifully plated Vietnamese dishes include a very tasty caramelized pork and herb number and a solid broken rice with grilled pork. There is a second, larger restaurant with a bright upstairs retail space at 19 Le Thanh Ton.

A stylish lounge and restaurant on the banks of the slow-flowing Saigon River, The Deck is a place to spoil yourself with sublime seafood-focused pan-Asian cuisine, fine wines, and professional service. The beauty of the entry courtyard, with its tall trees, black marble pond, and potted lotus plants, is almost forgotten once you enter the restaurant, where the river views take center stage. The weekend Champagne brunches are sophisticated yet casual and the executive set lunches are perfectly suited to the business crowd.

World-class tea, cakes, pastries, and Australian café-style comfort food is served among antiques, objets d'art, and other treasures collected by globe-trotting chef and hotelier David Campbell. It's a very exotic feeling to be sitting on a vintage couch surrounded by beautiful things, using the free Wi-Fi and sipping top-quality TWG teas. High tea, brunch, or lunch can be served inside the antiques shop, on the terrace, or in the elaborate gazebo outside. The menu offers various baked goods, sandwiches, pies, and dishes such as lasagna and quiche. It's a great place to try Australian favorites such as lamingtons (chocolate cake with coconut), coconut ice, and sausage rolls, as well as European favorites like arancini balls.

Midway between the Reunification Palace and Notre Dame cathedral, overlooking the tall trees of April 30 Park, this is a great place to linger in exotic surroundings, whether for a meal or just a smoothie or coffee. The flavors are Mediterranean and Middle Eastern, the staff is attentive, and the location is prime. The appeal of Au Parc, in a restored colonial-era shopfront, is further enhanced by the children's playroom upstairs, which is supervised by a nanny on weekends from 11 am to 4 pm while brunch is served.

Serving what is described as "redesigned" Vietnamese cuisine with a focus on fresh ingredients, the sleek and artsy Propaganda does nontraditional takes on traditional dishes, especially fresh spring rolls. You can avoid menu confusion by choosing the 510,000d or 580,000d discovery menu of four courses, three glasses of wine, and organic green tea. Midway between the Reunification Palace and the Notre Dame Cathedral, Propaganda is the perfect spot to recharge during a long hot day of sightseeing, while admiring some (you guessed it) wartime propaganda art.

Serving a mishmash of international, Tex-Mex, and Vietnamese fare, Snap is an open-air family-oriented café-restaurant set in a large thatched hut overlooking a children's playground. Popular with the local expat community, Snap caters to non-families with its quieter library section tucked away on one side beside a manicured tropical garden. The restaurant tries hard to please all comers, with burger nights, quiz nights, live music, and an extensive menu. The staff is friendly, especially to kids. Snap is located in a complex with boutiques and other dining options, so leave some time to wander.

This friendly little bistro, a fixture in the city's dining scene for many years, wouldn't be out of place in New York. The Elbow Room serves hearty all-day breakfast, burgers, sandwiches, pizzas, and pastas.