The Refinery Restaurant — Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City

The Refinery is a culinary time capsule where the bar menu has been cryogenically frozen since 2009, presumably for posterity—or perhaps just to confuse the concept of progress. It is now 2025, and I am convinced that if the world ends, the last two things standing will be cockroaches and The Refinery’s goat cheese salad.

Nestled in a mews that has watched eateries rise and fall like empires—Beirut is long gone (as is the falafel), and Blanchy Street faded like a cherry blossom in a typhoon—but The Refinery? Immovable. Eternal. The Methuselah of the Hai Bà Trưng dining scene.

The architecture still clings proudly to its French Colonial roots. It’s as if a bistro in Marseille fell through a wormhole in time and landed here, shrugged, and said, “Oui, this’ll do.” The tiled floors whisper tales of past conquests and spilled Pinot Gris. The furniture? Robustly resistant to trends and, one suspects, basic lumbar comfort.

As for the service—well, let’s just say the only thing that turns over faster than the wine is the staff. A charming carousel of new faces, each valiantly pretending this isn’t their first day (it is). But honestly, who needs consistency in personnel when the décor hasn’t blinked in sixteen years?

Come for the bruschetta, stay because you’ve become part of the furniture. A go-to? Absolutely. A relic? Most definitely. But in a city where restaurants vanish faster than expats at Tet, The Refinery is gloriously, stubbornly unchanging. A vintage you can rely on.

Long...

The Refinery serves a brunch every weekend. We chose to do the 385k "food only brunch" which consists of one fruit juice, one coffee or tea, one main dish (you can choose from 7 or so) and one dessert (choose from 5 or so), one assortment of bread, bagel, toast with cream cheese, honey, jam, marmelade, butter. With a price like that I get critical.

Our first pick for a main dish turned out to be finished. What a start right. I mean sure, we had this happen a dozen times already in Vietnam, but never at a more expensive restaurant where it's 1/7th of the menu. The fresh juice (passion fruit) was sour and noticeably with a lot of added water. In the assortment of bread the sourdough toast was very tough (toasted way too long and too long ago) and there was only 1 bagel for two persons. Staff speaks limited English. We were helped by two waiters, both with such bad pronunciation that it caused a lot of confusion. Again this is not a big problem but not what I'd expect at an establishment like the Refinery.

The main dishes and desserts were very tasty, no complaints at all. Just delicious.

So all in all we expect a lot more for the prices asked. The dishes prepared in the kitchen is very good but simply toasting bread seems to be difficult to them(waiting staff does this perhaps?).

With some minor changes they'd create much more value and this would earn them two extra stars. Now I consider it...

My fiancé and I had the most wonderful dining experience here and would call BS to all the negative reviews we read out here. The restaurant wasn’t too busy when we arrive at 7.30pm. The manager, Monsieur Khiam was courteous and got us the best seat in the house. The seat is facing the bar and easily for us to look at the daily specials on the whiteboard right beside us. The appetizer and wine pairing was served quickly to us and the servers were consistently checking on us if we needed anything. At the end of our meal, we were recommended to try their crepe which was presented to us live. It was a delight watching Khiam showing off his skills. We had the opportunity to try 2 different vodka shots fermented by Khiam himself for 2 weeks or more. I suppose, if you ask nicely, you can have a sample otherwise go ahead and ask for the manager’s pineapple cocktail. You will see a picture of the passionate Khiam explaining about his homemade drink and a picture of my fiancé and I taken by the bar. We had the pleasure learning more of the restaurant’s rich history by the owner, Noelle herself too and she was kind enough to give us some nice postcards of The Refinery as memory. In summary, food was excellent. And the hosts were the best. Pricing wise it was very fairly...