Inside Michelin-starred restaurant in Hanoi

, Hanoi, offers a high-end culinary experience inspired by Vietnamese ingredients. Gia Restaurant on Van Mieu Street

Gia was one of the first four restaurants in Vietnam to win a Michelin star in June, honouring restaurants with "delicious food quality that deserves to be enjoyed".

The restaurant is located on Van Mieu Street, opposite the Temple of Literature, and was formed from the respect for traditional Vietnamese cuisine and the beauty of regional culture. This is also reflected in the bold Vietnamese design style inside the restaurant.

Images of water puppetry culture are incorporated in the staircase area leading to the second floor of the restaurant.

Gia has two floors serving guests with 14 tables. The tables are arranged relatively sparsely despite the small space, ensuring privacy and concentration for diners while dining.

A table has been set for diners. Gia serves a "tasting menu". Diners will have a journey of taste experience with more than 10 pre-set dishes, served with drinks prepared to best suit the taste of each dish.

Each dish consists of a small portion, just enough for one person, carefully presented in both form and taste. Before eating, the staff will tell diners a short story that the chef wants to convey through the dish and instruct them on how to enjoy it to feel the fullest flavor.

The storytelling part is less than a minute, ensuring a seamless meal without distracting the diners from their dining experience.

The restaurant's current menu is called "Full Moon", in honor of the northern autumn season. It is also the restaurant's way of celebrating its first "full moon" with a Michelin star.

Pictured are beef tartare with lolot leaves (left) and stonefish liver with sturgeon caviar, wrapped in biscuits (right) - the first two dishes of the lunch menu, priced at 1.2 million VND per person. Both dishes evoke the image of the moon, sometimes full but sometimes waning.

The next dish is ginseng served with guava leaves and passion fruit sauce. According to the restaurant representative, most of the dishes are made directly, except for some ingredients such as the cookie crust. To enjoy the entire menu of about 10 dishes, diners will need at least 1.5 hours.

For this dish, diners use chopsticks. Before eating, the staff will bring out the restaurant's collection of chopsticks for diners to choose from. This collection is handcrafted from ebony and rosewood.

The main dish on the menu, Phu Quoc squid eggs, is served with a sauce made from crab roe, tomatoes, and topped with salmon eggs. The squid is soft, the eggs are fatty, when combined with the sauce, it creates a rich, fragrant taste.

The small "sliced ​​vegetables" on the side help reduce the richness, inspired by "wrapping", reminiscent of the vegetable baskets of Hanoians when eating bun cha or bun rieu.

Next is the A4 Wagyu beef dish, served with mashed pumpkin and a little basil, reminiscent of Hue beef noodle soup, according to the restaurant staff. However, this is only partly true in appearance, the flavor of A4 Wagyu beef is different from the beef we use in beef noodle soup. The meat is soft, combining "well" with mashed pumpkin.

Mushroom rice is considered a signature dish of Gia restaurant, cooked from Bac Huong rice, which is soft, slightly sticky and fragrant. Diners are advised to try the steamed egg bowl with snow fungus first.

Inside the kitchen of Gia restaurant. Chef Sam Tran and his colleagues spent two weeks in the West to find ingredients, but in the end, they did not use any for the "Full Moon" menu. "The creative process requires a lot of trial and error. We plan to use ingredients from the West for upcoming menus," said a restaurant representative. The Michelin star has brought Gia more customers. Currently, the restaurant's reservations are full until early November.

The exterior of Gia restaurant stands out with wooden doors, creating a sense of closeness and harmony with the ancient space of the Temple of Literature.

Vnexpress.net