Amid Saigon’s restless energy, three new destinations invite pause. NÚC Kitchen & Bar, ÚNU Cocktails & Eatery, and Ômm Mixology Saigon transcend dining and drinking, transforming hospitality into philosophies of craft, memory, and reverence. Together they mark a shift toward intimacy, storytelling, and mindfulness in Vietnam’s evolving culinary scene.
NÚC Kitchen & Bar: Quiet Flames and Living Memory
Nestled within a repurposed schoolhouse in An Khanh, NÚC Kitchen & Bar is less a restaurant than a meditation on time and the earth’s quiet generosity. Its name, drawn from the Vietnamese vernacular bếp núc, evokes the unseen intimacy of the kitchen: the simmer, the scent, the hush before a meal. Here, cooking unfolds deliberately, each plate composed as an act of remembrance. The “Quiet Notes” tasting menu, eight seasonal chapters, reads like music. Shellfish with mandarin and coconut recalls the clarity of a seaside dusk. Charcoal-grilled chicken with chili and honey ignites with the intensity of first love. Wagyu with beans and perilla conjures the poetry of a rainy Tokyo evening, before green rice with pandan and coconut closes the journey in a whisper of nostalgia.
The philosophy Gastronomy with Nature in Mind permeates everything. Local ingredients are foraged, fermented, or preserved in-house. Waste is repurposed into broths, vinegars, or new textures. Even the building itself echoes this ethic: floors reclaimed from Mekong Delta homes, beams salvaged from Chợ Lớn, bombshells transformed into planters. At NÚC, nothing is wasted; everything is retold, patiently, through wood, stone, and fire.
The experience is less about spectacle than resonance. Diners leave with more than satisfaction they leave with memory awakened, reminded that the simplest flavors often carry the deepest echoes.
Address: 08 Nguyen Dang Giai Street, An Khanh Ward, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
ÚNU Cocktails & Eatery: Liquid Stories and Fragments of Memory
If NÚC is fire and earth, ÚNU Cocktails & Eatery is water fluid, mutable, reflective. Tucked within the Anima space in central Saigon, ÚNU is where food and drink converse with art and memory.
Its philosophy is simple yet profound: to transform the inner landscapes of artists into cocktails that taste like fragments of life.
The bar’s standout concept, “Liquid Stories,” distills the recollections of seven Vietnamese artists into liquid form. Tuýp Trần’s glass captures his first days in Saigon a sharp, awakening mix of fermented ambarella, chili oxymel, and tequila, echoing the sting of sunlight and the openness of embracing change. Phạm Xeen’s salted strawberry gin cocktail recalls his childhood in Cần Giờ, shaped by salt, water, and
labor gentle, balanced, rooted.
Each drink is intimate, almost confessional. They are not cocktails for performance, but for contemplation. To sip here is to step briefly into another’s memory refracted into flavor. Supporting dishes, crafted from seasonal local ingredients, play a quiet role in this storytelling. Food and cocktails intertwine to offer not indulgence but honesty. ÚNU reminds us that gastronomy at its truest is not about opulence; it is about revealing what is essential.
The space itself mirrors this ethos: layered, artistic, designed for reflection. In a city often associated with speed and consumption, ÚNU insists on pause on remembering that taste can be personal, almost sacred.
Address: Floors G & M, 43 - 45 Ho Tung Mau Street, Saigon Ward, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
ÔMM Mixology Saigon: Curiosity, Science, and Spirit
Completing the triad is Ômm Mixology Saigon, a mixology hidden cove featuring a 12-cocktail menu crafted by Japanese mixologist Shuzo Nagumo, who has spent over two decades delving into the nuanced depths of tea, cacao, coffee, and botanicals.
Ômm is at once laboratory and sanctuary. Here, cocktails are composed with techniques such as centrifugation, vacuum distillation, and clarification — methods employed not for spectacle but for revelation. Each drink begins with the ingredient itself: meeting the grower, the roaster, the distiller, listening to the stories behind the harvest. From that understanding, cocktails emerge as dialogues between craft and terroir.
Signature creations exemplify this philosophy. Lishan Nectar infuses high-mountain Taiwanese tea into rum, layered with pear, honey, elderflower, and citrus — a misty mountain morning captured in liquid form. Roasted Newton Fizz evokes the warmth of apple pie and roasted tea, topped with a white chocolate espuma like a delicate evening cloud. Primitive, meanwhile, reimagines Vietnamese culinary spirit: artichoke tea, lemongrass vodka, amaro, and native herbs layered into a bittersweet, aromatic ode to the country’s palette.
The bar itself is dim, art-infused, intentionally contemplative. Music is curated as carefully as the drinks; installations from contemporary artists blur the lines between beverage, mood, and art. To drink here is not simply to taste but to feel curiosity turned into form.
Address: 1st Floor, 63 Ho Tung Mau Street, Saigon Ward, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
A Shared Language of Reverence
Though distinct in expression, NÚC, ÚNU, and Ômm are bound by a common thread: reverence. At NÚC, reverence manifests as patience honoring nature’s cycles and history’s remnants. At ÚNU, it is memory made liquid, personal stories distilled into taste. At Ômm, reverence emerges as curiosity respect for the ingredient’s essence, unlocked through science and artistry.
Together, they mark a shift in Saigon’s and Vietnam’s hospitality landscape. This is not dining as performance, nor cocktails as fleeting entertainment. It is hospitality as artful conversation. These spaces ask diners not to rush but to feel; not to consume but to listen.
In their quiet yet radical ways, they signal a new language of gastronomy and mixology for Vietnam one that balances innovation with intimacy, sustainability with story, and indulgence with meaning.