Nhà Hàng Cơm Việt Heritage 63 Phạm Hồng Thái — Restaurant in Hà Nội

A Vietnamese restaurant that is reputed to be fine dining and a the regular lunch spot for the Prime Minister.

The diminutive entrance opens into a grand hall where some antiques and the accountant/cashier are visible.

A greeter triages your need/destination and quickly sends you up in an elevator.

As a solo diner, I was sent to what appears the foreigner room on the rooftop to enjoy my lunch.

The staff were quick to recommend Hanoian deep fried spring rolls with almost no thought on the matter.

Why? Is there something special about these spring rolls? They couldn’t answer.

Upon perusing the menu, full of omissions and price changes with different generations of label printers and sticky tape, (the document more-resembling a battlefield) I settled on enough chargrilled snails, beef salad, pork belly and rice that could feed a table of four.

To my chagrin, I later found out that the snails were from Hanoi’s lovey but extremely polluted West Lake.

Ok, in terms of a one star rating here are my thoughts:

1. restaurant listing says open 24 hours - so the information is useless and forces the end user to do work to eat here - minus one for lack of hospitality

2. the entrance to the restaurant is beautiful but is ruined by a cashier station - a very regular occurrence in Vietnamese restaurants. No we don’t want to see a frowning office worker in the middle of a nice restaurant.

3. although printing and graphic design are relatively low cost in Vietnam, instead, they have decided to continuously revise the menu with various sticky tapes and label makers, something I would only expect at a roadside diner or similar - minus points for lack of elegance and attention to detail.

4. I can’t differentiate between whether this restaurant is truly a step up or just street food amalgamated and displayed with some window dressing. Menu items that mention “Com Viet style,” seem intellectually lazy rather than stand out.

Overall, the experience was not bad but there is a mismatch between the setting, the actions, the intent and delivery.

Would I come back? Probably not unless under the invitation of perhaps, the Prime Minister, where we can muse about his favourite dishes, the deep meaning and background of the dishes and what makes this restaurant stand out.

I recognize that it is not appropriate to mention portion control - Vietnamese dinners and lunches are for sharing, not an individual. As a result, you’ll be able to feed a small family with my above order.

That’s fine, my job is to be infinitely and infinitely knowledgeable about all the upscale and fine dining in Vietnam.

Final note - I also took a look at the wine list (of which photos are included). None of the wines are really worthy of mention or inclusion. Mostly lesser known and lower rated wines, some made for Asia wines and others that buy gold medals and awards to sell to a less sophisticated crowd. I would...

we randomly found this spot during our quick two-day trip to Hanoi — and wow, it’s like a mini heritage museum tucked right into the middle of the city chaos. As soon as you walk in, staffs greets you with a smile and starts telling cool little stories behind each antique piece on display (super chill but also really informative)

To get to the dinner area, you just hop in an elevator — super smooth. We got seated in this stunning space that turns out to be a 300-year-old house transported all the way from Hue (yes, seriously !!!). It felt grand and romantic, but also warm and friendly, many tks to the amazing staff

And can we talk about the uniforms? Everyone’s wearing the traditional “ao dai” and it looks so so elegant. Big shoutout for the Nem (Vietnamese spring rolls) — a classic dish, but every place does it differently, and here it’s totally worth a try 👍🏻

( just little remind ) It’s the changing season, so you might run into a few mosquitoes if you’re sitting outside. Would recommend enjoying meal indoors in the beautiful old house - it’s part of the charm anyway!

100% coming back next time we...

Biggest drawback: on the very expensive end for these kinds of Vietnamese dishes, averaging 150-250+ per dish and the portion is tiny. Tastes good though, maybe ingredients were sourced well.

The place is definitely catered for Westerners and people with money to spend. If you have business partners this would be perfect, Vietnamese decor, high-end service. But as a Viet local I’d go somewhere else for the same food with...