The Chim Sao, a Vietnamese restaurant renowned for the excellence of its typical cuisine of Hanoi, is located in a 1934 French house. On the ground floor, bar, tables and a permanent exhibition of paintings by young Vietnamese artists; on the first floor, typical Vietnamese layout of small coffee tables and cushions.
The cuisine is exceptional, presented in a very complete menu, and offers some unique dishes such as smoked mountain pork, caramel pork, ground pigeon served with shrimp pancakes, sautéed duck with basil, shrimp sautéed with salted eggs, eel with lemongrass and red peppers, braised catfish with green bananas and tofu, many Vietnamese fondues and other delicacies. Remarkable collection of rice alcohols.
The Chef of the Chim Sao gives cooking lessons.
In addition to everything, the prices are surprisingly reasonable for such quality, varying for the main dishes between 2$ and 8$.
Since many years, the Chim Sao is rewarded every year with the Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence and features with compelling compliments in travel guides such as the French Guide du Routard and Petit Fûté, as well as English Guides such as Lonely Planet.
One of the best traditional restaurants in Hanoi.
“Chim Sao ("Whistling Bird") is famous in Hanoi as one of the best restaurants of traditional countryside Vietnamese food. It serves unique delicacies for extremely reasonable rates, which explains its huge success with both the Vietnamese Intelligentsia and the local Expat community. It is also mous for its large collection of rice alcohols. The Chim Sao doubles as an Art gallery which regularly organizes exhibitions of young Vietnamese artists, and it gives cooking lessons. One of the Must of Hanoi!
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Simple perfect.
“Exactly the restaurant you want. Authentic. Excellent food. Nice local decor. Small place. Very cozy, you feel good as you get in. Vietnamese and Hanoi expatriates as clients. Salads, vegetables, meat , fish . All very well prepared, nicely presented and well explained. You will love it. ”
A great little place.
“We were recommended this place through the expat community and spent our New Years dinner here. It's a little off the beaten track but well worth the walk. Extensive menu and great service.”
Very nice authentic Vietnamese restaurant.
“Went with the family to this great restaurant. There are tables but we opted for the low tables with cushions upstairs. The food is very good, reasonably priced and tasty. Ended up ordering many things and we polished off everything. Highly recommend this place instead of those fancy fusion wannabe Vietnamese places.
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Extreme local and cozy ambiance.
“I went to this restaurant with some Vietnamese friends. The restaurant has a really really local look inside from its decoration to the staff's uniform. There're many special dishes with special recipes which I tasted for the first time: Fried locust, on-ice colocynth with salted shredded meat, frog meat... They all are excellent!.”
Excellent restaurant, off the beaten path but worth seeking out.
“This restaurant is a bit off the tourist radar but they do have menu in English. I believe it's worth it if you find it, as it is more "authentic" experience, food and ambient, than Highway 4 or Quan An Ngon / Nha Hang Ngon. The beef wraps (?) was really memorable, as was a fried fish dish. As mentioned in the previous review, the quality is very good. There were no tourists by themselves, so it might be more intimidating than the other restaurants nearer the lakes geared toward foreigners. However, I think you should have no issues if you go without local guides. This would be my pick for the best food we had in Ha Noi.”
