7 Real Places to Eat in Hoi An

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Hoi An earns its reputation as a food town on a handful of dishes that genuinely don’t travel well to anywhere else in Vietnam, most of them a short walk from the UNESCO-listed Ancient Town . Skip the tourist-menu restaurant with the tout outside; these are the actual addresses and dishes worth the walk.

7 things worth eating

  1. Cao lau, the signature dish: thick, chewy rice noodles given a lye-and-ash treatment, topped with char-siu pork, greens, and crisp croutons, with just enough broth to coat rather than swim in. Legend says it needs water from a specific old well, which is part of why it’s hard to find done right outside town. Eat it at a lunch stall near the market rather than a laminated tourist menu.
  2. Banh Mi Phuong, 2B Phan Chau Trinh: the sandwich Anthony Bourdain called a “symphony,” running roughly 25,000-50,000 VND. It gets a genuine queue, and it moves fast enough that the wait is rarely the problem people expect.
  3. Madam Khanh, “the Banh Mi Queen,” 115 Tran Cao Van: Hoi An’s other famous banh mi stop, and a legitimate second opinion if the queue at Phuong looks too long.
  4. Com Ga Ba Buoi, 22 Phan Chu Trinh, serving Hoi An turmeric chicken rice since the 1950s: simple, specific to this town, and worth ordering exactly as served rather than asking for substitutions.
  5. White rose dumplings (banh bao vac), translucent rice-flour parcels of shrimp and pork, said to trace back to a single family recipe that still supplies most of the town’s version. Order them alongside cao lau rather than as a standalone meal; they’re a starter-sized dish.
  6. Mi quang and banh xeo, the turmeric noodle and the crispy pancake respectively, both Quang Nam specialties rather than Hoi An exclusives, but both done well here and easy to find at any market food stall.
  7. A riverside coffee, egg or coconut style, and a bia hoi afterward. The Thu Bon riverside cafes are a legitimate reason to sit still for an hour, and a glass of draft bia hoi runs around 30,000 VND, cheaper than almost anything else on this list.

Is a cooking class worth it if you’ve already eaten your way through this list?

Yes. A market-to-table cooking class (roughly $15-30 per person) usually starts with a walkthrough of the same market stalls these dishes come from, which is worth more than the recipe itself, then has you cook a version of two or three of them. If you’d rather be led straight to the stalls above without cooking anything yourself, a guided street-food walk covers most of this list in one evening.

Vietnam’s official tourism site covers dishes beyond Hoi An’s own four if you’re travelling on through central Vietnam. For where to base yourself near all of this, see our where to stay in Hoi An guide, or the full Hoi An guide .