London has quietly become one of the best cities outside Vietnam to eat Vietnamese food, and a new round-up from Condé Nast Traveller UK makes a compelling case for planning an entire eating tour of the capital. The list of 11 contenders stretches from Soho to Blackheath, though the heart of the scene remains East London's Pho Mile on Kingsland Road, where many refugees resettled after the Vietnam War ended in 1975 and opened restaurants that shaped the city's palate.
The picks range from institutions to newcomers. Sông Quê Café, founded by the late Lot Van Pham in 2002 and now run by his wife and daughter, is a Pho Mile stalwart serving a restorative bowl of bún bò Huế, the spicy beef noodle soup from central Vietnam. Cafe East Pho has been going for nearly 30 years, migrating from Deptford to Surrey Quays before landing in Blackheath in 2023, with a new Holborn branch just opened. Cây Tre's original Shoreditch site dates to 2003, with its glam Soho sibling following in 2011 – it's one of the few places to find bánh cuốn, steamed rice rolls done in regional styles, plus addictive fish-sauce-glazed chicken wings.
Newer openings show where the scene is heading. Lai Rai in Peckham, from the Vinaxoa snack collective and designer House of Baby, channels Vietnam's bia hơi streetside beer-and-snacks culture and was named one of the UK's top new restaurants of 2026. Bánh Bánh in Brixton, run by five Nguyen siblings honouring their Saigon chef grandmother, deliberately serves no pho at all – it's a sharing-plates dinner spot built around charcoal-grilled dishes like lemongrass pork sausages.
The list rewards curiosity beyond the usual pho-and-summer-rolls order. Lò Bánh Mì on Borough High Street bakes its own rice-flour-lightened baguettes daily and piles them with roast pork belly and crackling. Dzô Viet Kitchen on Upper Street does the rare Hanoi dish chả cá Lã Vọng – here with monkfish cheeks instead of catfish – in a buzzy room made for groups. Sông Hồng in Battersea covers home-style Red River Delta cooking, Med Salleh Viet in Earl's Court blends Vietnamese and Malaysian influences (don't miss the braised beef offal with rice), Eat Vietnam in Deptford grills tiger prawns and pork over charcoal, and Phở Thuý Tây Café in Surrey Quays serves northern specialities like snail stew with tofu.
Why it matters: if your idea of Vietnamese food stops at pho, this list is a nudge to go deeper – and most of these restaurants are affordable, casual and spread across neighbourhoods worth exploring anyway, from Borough Market's doorstep in Southwark to Blackheath village. A self-guided crawl of Pho Mile followed by a Peckham or Soho splurge would make a genuinely great foodie weekend in London.
