Exploring Hanoi and looking for places to eat? Here is a list of 5 different places to eat that we would recommend to visit. These are mainly western options, but they all produced such great food that we just wanted to let others know. Please note, we visited during the tet holiday, so these are the main places that were open during the time. If you’re looking for burgers, cakes, or banh mi’s – here is our list of places to eat in Hanoi.

The Hanoi Social Club

This was the first place we visited whilst in Vietnam. I know not exactly traditional Vietnamese food, but after living in China for over 5 months – we were craving a good burger, particularly a good vegetarian burger.

Make sure you follow maps to get to this restaurant as the entrance is quite small, however it opens up to a beautiful, three-story, beautifully decorated building. A huge menu, including a huge selection of vegetarian options as well. I initially had gone for a burger but almost changed my mind as there were so many things I could pick from. The burgers came and they were huge! They tasted amazing and for us, it was so good to just having something western taste so good after months of traveling – we had missed eating burgers.

If you are looking for a good burger, or vegetarian food, this is the place to go.

Banh Mi 25

Now you can’t visit Vietnam without eating a banh mi, and Banh Mi 25 is the highest recommended place. You can’t google banh mi and it not come up as number 1, and it certainly lived up to expectations.

Fairly easy to find, you can either order direct on the side of the street that they make them, or you can sit down in their little seating area and order through the staff that way. They have a huge menu, including a large selection of vegetarian choices as well. My personal choice was the egg, cheese and avocado banh mi.

This was the best banh mi I had throughout my time in Vietnam. It had everything I wanted and just tasted great. We loved our first one so much we ended up ordering another one as they were so good.

We were frustrated that due to the holiday, they were closed for the rest of our duration in Vietnam, so we weren’t able to have another banh mi from here. If it was open, we definitely would have eaten there a few times as they tasted amazing.

The Note Coffee

You’ll have definitely seen this place on instagram if you type in things to do in Hanoi. The Note Coffee is a lovely four story cafe placed centrally looking over Hoan Kiem Lake. We spotted it instantly when we were walking around the lake and thought we should pop in and see it.

The staff immediately greet you with happy welcoming smiles. They were all very friendly as they let us decide which floor we wanted to sit on. Once we had decided, we ordered our drinks and got to enjoy watching the world go by, as well as admire the interior of the cafe with all the post-it notes.

This cafe is a very fun experience and our drinks tasted amazing. It really was fun being able to read all the different post-it notes and even add our own to the collection.

Chops

Ready for another burger place?

We visited Chops under the recommendation of another traveller as we had said that we missed eating them during our time in China – so we headed to Chops.

Chops specialises in burgers and locally brewed beers, pairing beers with their burgers on the menu. The only thing to note, is that you have to order chips on the side, they are not included in the price of the burger. I chose the veggie burger paired with the cider (there were 2 choices of drinks recommended with my burger and I chose the strawberry gin fizz cider).

The burgers came out and were huge, they were also delicious. The side of the chips that came out as well were great, we couldn’t finish them. So in a way, because you have to pay extra for them, they are definitely worth it.

Paperman

We found this place by chance, but we were pleasantly surprised with the this banh mi and coffee bar. They specialise in traditional banh mi’s, but also offer choices of sandwiches, donuts and FIND OUT.

I couldn’t quite decide what I wanted, but I knew I wanted to stick with a traditional banh mi from here where there is only one option for a vegetarian banh mi, however, they have plenty of options on their normal sandwich menu.

It is quite a small place, so it is more of a order your food and go – we were fortunate enough to get a seat, enjoy our food and listen to the awesome music that was playing. There is a real cool vibe to Paperman, very modern and well decorated.

You should definitely check this place out for a good selection of banh mi’s and sandwiches.

So there is our list of places to eat in Hanoi. We really enjoyed our time in this city and we were met with plenty of choices of food whilst we visited, even with the holiday. I hope you all get to visit at least one of these picks, and enjoy the food as much as we did.

If you have any other recommendations, pop me an email and let me know.

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