Best Vietnamese 2015

Best Vietnamese winners of Vancouver Magazine’s 26th Annual Restaurant Awards

• Gold: Phnom Penh
• Silver (tie): Mr. Red Cafe
• Silver (tie): Au Petit Café
• Honourable Mentions: BaoQi, Pho Tan

 The bulletin board inside its front door won’t let us forget that Anthony Bourdain and Donald Sutherland, among other luminaries, love Phnom Penh (Gold), but their endorsements only confirm what many of us already knew: that this long-running Chinatown hole-in-the-wall is in a league of its own. The reputations of the chicken wings and butter beef are well established, but be adventurous when exploring the vast menu: at these prices, you can afford to, and the likelihood of disappointment is virtually nil. (Read our tingling lips: spicy garlic squid.) Mr. Red Cafe (Silver) dropped from nowhere into the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood last year and, at a stroke, raised the bar for Northern Vietnamese cuisine in the city; let wonderful co-owner/host Rose Nguyen (see Premier Crew) guide you through the menu, and the kitchen will reward your trust. Tied for Silver, Au Petit Café is a proudly modest family enterprise, but its pho, banh mi, and curries are as outsize and assertive as the room is not. Honourable Mentions: BaoQi, Pho Tan