At 5am, Hanoi's Long Bien wholesale market is already in full swing. Motorbikes weave through the perimeter road carrying plucked chickens, women preside over walls of pineapples, and baskets of herbs, lemongrass and lime leaves wait to be ferried across a city of nine million people. It's the supply chain behind one of Asia's great street-food capitals – a place where Chinese, regional Vietnamese and French colonial influences all show up on the plate.
The classic Hanoi ritual is a morning pho bo crawl. Stalls set up before dawn and plenty of shops are out of broth by 9am, so timing matters. Pho Loc, tucked at the northern end of the Old Quarter, pours a light, sweet broth. Further south, Pho Thin is perpetually packed – pay at the door, grab a seat, and tuck into a cloudy, marrow-enriched broth topped with smoky stir-fried beef and a mountain of spring onion. Season it however you like; nobody's judging.
Then there's coffee. Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil, and Hanoi's signature serve is egg coffee, invented in the 1940s when a bartender named Nguyen Van Giang whisked egg yolk, sugar and condensed milk into a foam to get around a milk shortage. Cafe Giang in the old town is the original and still the benchmark. For something different, Cafe Duy Tri in Tay Ho serves a surprisingly good iced yoghurt coffee from a tiny upstairs balcony.
At lunchtime, bun cha takes over – charcoal-grilled pork meatballs and belly with broth, herbs and rice noodles, assembled DIY-style on tiny plastic stools. Bun Cha 74 Hang Quat in the Old Quarter is touristy but still worth the queue.
Hanoi's nightlife won't match Hong Kong's density, but it has its own charm. Rabbit Habit is a genuine speakeasy down an unmarked alley near Train Street (itself worth a visit to watch trains pass uncomfortably close). The new YY Bar at the Fairmont Hotel mixes signature drinks with Vietnamese ingredients like lotus root and dracontomelon, a sour local fruit.
On the upscale side, Australian chef Luke Nguyen has opened Tran Dynasty at the Fairmont, reinterpreting the cuisine of Vietnam's medieval Tran era (1225 to 1400) – think caramelised fish sauce with seasonal vegetables, and yes, a pho cocktail served over a spice-scattered ice bath. For something more rustic, Tam Vi does northern Vietnamese homestyle cooking.
For travellers, Hanoi is an easy food trip to justify: direct flights from Sydney and Melbourne with Vietnam Airlines, a compact Old Quarter you can wander on foot, and meals that often cost less than a coffee back home. The Fairmont Hanoi, which opened in March 2026 between the French Quarter and the Old Quarter near Hoan Kiem Lake, has 241 rooms, eight restaurants and a subterranean bathhouse with ice rooms and meditation pods – from $500 a night. But honestly, the best seats in the city come with a plastic stool and a bowl of broth.
Reporting by Traveller (Sydney Morning Herald).
