Hanoi cooking classes

If you’re thinking about how you might recreate some of the tastes and dishes you’ve been sampling in Hanoi once you return home, roll up your sleeves and grab a cleaver. There are three very good options for spending half a day learning to prepare some of your Vietnamese favorites at a local cooking class.

If you are already home, it’s not too late. Browse our Recipes for easy dishes you can prepare at home to present a classic Vietnamese menu.

Hidden Hanoi

 

Hidden Hanoi offers the best broad introduction to Vietnamese culinary culture. It is a small company run by a lovely Vietnamese woman name An whose mission is to share her knowledge and love of Vietnam with visitors to Hanoi. In addition to cooking classes, Hidden Hanoi also offer survival Vietnamese language classes and a variety of walking tours. Classes are fully participatory and although each student prepares the ingredients for a different dish, the whole class watches as each one is cooked and of course you get to sample all of the dishes over a shared lunch. There is no guided market visit in this program, but if you choose to pair this class with a walking tour, you can request a market visit as part of that tour.


Highway 4

A cooking class at Highway 4 gives you the chance to try your hand at some of Highway 4’s delicious favorites, including their famous catfish spring rolls. Their cooking class also includes a short cyclo ride through town on the way to a market visit at either Chợ Hàng Bè or Chợ Hôm, two famous neighborhood markets (although on my last visit, we walked from the Hang Tre location to Chợ Hàng Bè). The class is participatory and has the added advantage of starting early in the morning, so while you have a shared lunch to sample your cooking, the class wraps up at noon and gives you a full afternoon to explore the city.

Logistics: Highway 4 classes can be arranged every morning from 8AM – noon. Rates: Start at $52 per person for 2 people, with the rate dropping slightly with larger group size; 10 person maximum.

Sofitel Metropole Hotel

The Sofitel Metropole Hotel offers top quality dining experiences at both Le Beaulieu and Spices Garden, and presents a first class cookery option. This experience also begins with a cyclo ride to your market tour. Here, with the head chef of Spices Garden as your expert guide, you will learn about Vietnamese herbs and ingredients before heading back to the Metropole’s kitchen. While this class has participatory elements, there was a heavier focus on demonstration by the chef. The advantage is that you get to experience six dishes instead of the usual three or four. The Metropole class menus also include more sophisticated dishes such as pork cooked in bamboo, and stuffed crab with mushrooms. In lieu of a self-cooked lunch, the class moves over to Spices Garden for an elegant sampler feast prepared by the restaurant; the afternoon class (the only afternoon option for classes) includes dinner at Spices Garden.

Logistics: Sofitel Metropole Hotel classes are offered daily from 10AM - 2PM (including lunch) or 3PM – 9PM (including dinner). Rates: Prices range from $90-110 depending on day of the week and booking method. The hotel also offers a full-day Culinary Journey package that includes a morning tour of a noodle making village and ceramics village, lunch at Spices Garden, and an afternoon market visit, cooking class and tasting. Offered 8:30AM – 5:30PM daily, with rates ranging from $140-160 per person.

Hanoi’s coffee culture

Sai Gon has coffee on high floor, and under ground, etc., whereas Hanoi has street coffee and traditional cafeteria. The competition between Trung Nguyen coffee system, modern Cappuccino coffee and traditional coffee is still equal. This reveals that the Hanoians retain some uniqueness of their ancient lifestyle.

Coffee and the Hanoians

The Hanoians drink a lot of the dark, caffeinated beverage and prefer sipping their stronger blends outside in front of a small shop with some sweet milk and a spoonful of sugar. Every morning, on hot days of summer and cold and dull days of winter, you can easily see some here with a cup of coffee in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

For many Hanoians, the most important factor of a café is not its luxuriousness but the quality of the product. Old people love cafés which have been around a long time, located on old streets or inside deep alleys. Office workers like cafes with romantic and quiet styles like those in Pho Co Quarter. Young people prefer the noisy and busy atmosphere of modern and luxury or pavement cafés.

Street Coffee…

Soaking up the rhythms of the street and embracing Hanoi from all of its sides, from old to new ones, and from traditional to modern & quirky ones, you will tenderly recognize that, nothing can be better refresh us after hardworking hours than a cup of coffee on a street near Sword Lake (Hoan Kiem Lake).

Basking with sunshine in the afternoon when there’s less noise from automobiles, Hanoi ends a day and opens a new paradise for culture experiences. Taking over a legacy from bygone years with the involvement of an irresistible French factor, the Vietnamese have embraced café culture in a great way. There are so many famous coffee shops in Hanoi, like Nang café (6 Hang Bac), Nhan (39D1 Hang Hanh), Quat (Quan Thanh), Quynh (Bat Dan) to Giang (Hang Gai and Lam (60, 91 Nguyen Huu Huan)… Chairs are small, literally child-sized, and are sometimes made of blue plastic or painted wood. The tables are covered with glasses of ca phe den (black coffee) or ca phe sua da (iced coffee), which come with their own picturesque drip top. Not only just for connoisseurs,  these places are idea for having gossip, meeting old friends, talking to pass  time of day, stealing precious moments for romantics …

Now, let’s follow a coffee connoisseur…

A good example of the authentic Hanoi cafés is Hang Hanh, an atmospheric slender street veering off the city’s central Hoan Kiem Lake. In the afternoon, one may find himself inexplicably drawn to its’ wall-to-wall cafés which unfold below the shady boughs of leafy trees. Here, the annoying young and cool Vietnamese often sit and watch the world in front of their eyes. In late afternoon, with the last rays of sunshine, the place starts to buzz. At weekends, it is positively heaving with dating couples or gangs of youths desiring to be couples.

If this sounds too frenetic, a more subdued place like Giang Café can be chosen! Though situated in a busy tourist shopping street, the tiny confined Giang Café attracts the serious permanent coffee lovers and soccer addicts. 

[Cyclo cafe in Hanoi] My next stop is Lam café - the perfect refuge for artists, poets and thespians to refresh their minds for creativeness. Situated on a shaded street, it will bring you the relaxed moments by the simple but artistically-decorated bamboo furniture, colorful framed oil paintings on the wall, ceiling fans as well as wooden table with a lot of tiny china teapots.

Yet, if you ask me about my favorite one, I will not hesitate to answer that it is Quynh Café. Down in a quiet side street, this unassuming cafes’ entrance is marked by a simple red lantern and ornate ironwork doors. Stepping inside, you not only see the bamboo furniture on tiled floor but also the tiny plants adorn wooden shuttered windows. Looking on damp-streaked walls, you may surprise with wooden arrows and trumpets, farming implements and ancient hunting pistols. Breathing the cool air from the antiquated table-fan, wallowing in soft French background music, you will desire to stay longer...

Coffee drinking from another approach

The resurgence of tourism to these fragrant shores has led to the resurrection of the wonderful old ambience of former colonial times in many Hanoi cafés. Delightful cafés are now housed in elegant French-style villas with exquisite silk prints, meticulously polished wooden floors and pot-planted courtyards or serve delicious food all day and evening. Street cafés like the La Terrasse du Metropole on Ngo Quyen and Le Phung Hieu or Highlands Café, 84 Nguyen Du are the typical examples!

Hanoi’s coffee culture calls on coffee addicts from every corner of the globe! (hanoi travel guides)

Van phuc silk village

Van Phuc Silk Village is situated on the banks of Nhue Thi River, Nguyen Trai Road, near Ha Dong city, 8 km southwest of Ha Noi. It takes you only 30 minutes by motorbike to go there from the centre of Hanoi. The village has been much well known for its traditional sericulture, weaving, and silk products. Tourists coming here are lured by various beautiful shirts, crafts, ties, dresses and many other things made of silk available in the village. What is special is that the silk is made by very simple looms, which is the genuinely traditional Vietnamese way of making silk.

For centuries, silk has always been considered an extreme luxury, on par with rhinoceros horn, ivory and precious handworks in Vietnam. It has long been a universal byword of luxury, often worn by the richest, most powerful citizens. Most visitors somehow have heard about the significant role of this kind of material in Vietnam, yet might wonder where the cradle of Viet silk is. The mentioned Van Phuc Silk Village is proud to be the origin of best silk and silk-making industry of Vietnam, which is attached to a long-lasting history of more than two thousand years. Though passing by lots of ups and downs, during the recent years, the village’s craft has enjoyed revival due to a surging demand for silk in both the domestic and foreign markets.

Today, the fine and lustrous cloth that originates from the cocoon of the silkworm is more affordable for "ordinary" folk. Furthermore, silk is currently enjoying a fashion renaissance, particularly since its many varieties can be made into a wide range of designs suitable for all facets of modern life. Should you intend to have a silk pair of formal clothes made, just come here and select your suitable materials, and professional tailors here will bring you satisfaction!

Like other visitors to the village, you will be surprised at this “silk shop town”, where almost all houses along the paths have been turned into shops selling silk products. Specifically, the village is now home to 1,280 households, 90% of whom are involved in silk production and business. The village makes more than 2 million meters of silk per year. Yet, more than that, you are offered a good chance to explore the Vietnamese traditional industry of silk-making.

No tourists here are uncontented with the glisten of various silk products. They are always confronted with an initially bewildering array of silk products, from raw materials, to garments, and a myriad of silk accessories. The local silk is known for its smooth and lightweight appearance, and qualities that enable it to be dyed more colors to suit a variety of skin tones. In
order to cater for the changing demands and tastes of customers, Van Phuc silk producers are expanding their silk and garment repertoire: traditional glossy, embroidered silks, double layers, wrinkled silks, and of course, more colours, hues and weights, for which they have invented new techniques in dying and thermo-processing the threads.

If you are going to buy something from Vietnam as gifts for those at home, silk and clothes made of silk are available around in the village for your choice. Though the days when Vietnam's silk was reserved for nobility are long gone, what would never change is the sense of romance and luxury imparted by silk, a luminous cloth type. With 2000 years of history behind them, the silk weavers of Van Phuc Silk village are still busy, weaving dreams.

How to get there? With a view to reaching Van Phuc village, tourists should travel south west out of Ha Noi on Nguyen Trai Street until they reach the border of Ha Dong District. Then turn right and dive for about 3km. The village is on the left, some 8 km from central Hanoi. Motorbike, bus, or taxis are all of good use.

List best restaurants in Hanoi

Hanoi like various other South East Asian cities has a vibrant street food scene where visitors can get acquainted with traditional Vietnamese foods like noodle soups,pork sausages (gio lua), spring rolls (nem ran) fish balls (cha ca) and more though the city also has several excellent restaurants that offer a smorgasbord of authentic Vietnamese delights which are enjoyed by both local and visiting gourmands alike. Some these famous Hanoi restaurants include:-

Cha Ca La Vong

14 Cha Ca Street,
tel: +84 4 3825 3929

This renowned restaurant is housed in the rather rickety Doan family home which is located in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. The restaurant features its own contribution to Vietnamese cuisine which takes the form of fried fish served with various seasonings (Cha Ca). The fish is fried in a saffron tempered grease filled frying pan on a charcoal burner which is placed on your table. Along with the simmering fish, you are also provided bowls of cold vermicelli noodles, unsalted peanuts, chopped chili, herbs like mint and coriander, chopped spring onions, shrimp paste and fish sauce. You are expected to add some of the spring onions and herbs to the fish as while it cooks and then when it is done you are expected to dine family style by combining the superbly seasoned fish with its accompaniments.

Wild Rice (La Lua)
6 Ngo Thi Nham street,
Tel: +84 4 3943 8896

This upscale dining destination is housed in a stunning two storey restored French colonial villa decorated with much local art. The interior of the restaurant is truly striking and features a bamboo bar, a magnificent stone fire place and a bamboo garden. Wild Rice serves contemporary Vietnamese cuisine which displays various other Asian influences.

The Emperor Restaurant
8B Le Thanh Tong Street,
Telephone: + 84 4 8268801

This gorgeous restaurant is also housed in a gorgeous old colonial villa which is located opposite the Hanoi Opera House and the Metropole hotel. The Emperor restaurant has a resident jazz band and offers a menu that features specialties from the Vietnemese city’s of Hue like the delectable fresh Hue spring rolls called nem cuon and the banana-leaf-wrapped fish.

Nam Phuong
19 Pho Phan Chu Trinh Hanoi,
Vietnam
Tel: +84 4 824 0926

The celebrated restaurant Nam Phuong is also located within an old French Villa on Phan Chu Trinh Street in the heart of Hanoi near its Hoan Kiem Lake. The restaurant which has hosted many heads of state serves a menu that features traditional Vietnamese cuisine as well as more exotic offerings like fried frogs legs and the coveted Vietnamese delicacy of steamed snails.

Verticale
19 Ngo Van So Street,
Tel: +84 4 3944 6317

Verticale can be best described as a fusion Vietnamese restaurant which owned by the French chef Didier Corlou who was once the chef at the Sofitel Metropole hotel. This elegant restaurant is also housed in a French Villa and serves a menu which is a mélange of western and eastern flavors. Verticale offers a number of reasonable prix-fix options like the Verticale Set and The Hanoi Journey Set which provide a great insight into the restaurant’s flavorful repertoire.