LUA - Taking all the food favourites you know and love and adding a twist to it
3-month aged Speck made from Boar Pork Leg with little salt, little smoke and plenty of discipline (Photo courtesy of Lua)
Tucked away in a quiet street is one of the most talked-about restaurants at the moment, LỬA. While it aims to be an unassuming casual establishment, its food and wine output are anything but.
Located on the border between expat enclaves Thao Dien and An Phu, the area has experienced a recent influx of quality food establishments. This 20-seater fills in the niche of casual fine dining.
I was drawn to LỬA by the rave reviews, as well as its focus on sourcing organic local, seasonal ingredients from small producers - especially once I heard it had its own vegetable garden out the back of the villa that it currently occupies.
The Space
The villa is beautiful - a large two-storey house with large French windows and a rustic country feel with its open kitchen, enormous kitchen island and vegetable garden. It felt like I might have been in a French-Vietnamese aunt’s house for a family dinner. A nod to the Japanese co-founder and Japanese-Vietnamese bilateral relations success is parked out the front - a lovingly refurbished vintage Honda Cub.
The Food and Drink
Waiting for a friend, or perhaps waiting for entrees? The drinks list is a fantastic place to start, with homemade fruit wine by the glass, kombucha, and a carefully selected wine list of biodynamic, sustainable and vegan options. An offering that I rarely see in Vietnam is the availability of orange wine - a type of white wine made with the skin and seeds of the grapes left on, creating an orange hue and a higher tannin content than your average white wine.
The menu was smartly done when we visited, containing interesting options of recognisable favourites from Vietnamese, Japanese and Western cuisines.
The menu constantly changes, but starters consistently include house made cold cuts from local boar. What’s on that evening will change with the season, or based on availability. If you love seafood, we also recommend the young jackfruit and shiso beignet with oyster mayonnaise.
Homemade salami (Photo courtesy of Lua)
For those of you who miss the controversial le fromage de tête, run, don’t walk, to this establishment for your fix, where it is served with cauliflower steak. I should point out that it’s more of a whole roasted head of cauliflower than actual steak slices, so diners can divide portions by heads.
Le fromage de tête served with cauliflower steak
Fermentation of the wine doesn’t end with just their housemade wine. In an effort to be sustainable, they’ve incorporated koji into several of their dishes. The boar pork koji schnitzel served with starfruit salsa and brown butter is a standout. Chatting to a Vietnamese friend about how I’d never tried unripe starfruit before and how tasty it was as a salsa, she expressed surprise and said that the level of “unripe” is the preferred Vietnamese ripeness. I laughed, recalling the ideal ripeness of mangoes as also being slightly greener for Vietnamese tastes. Both retain a level of sourness that works perfectly in salads and salsas.
Boar pork koji schnitzel served with starfruit salsa and brown butter
The other dish that contains koji is the seasonal raw vegetable crudites, which include a koji labneh. Clearly taking a leaf from the popular Vietnamese dish of steamed or raw vegetables dipped in kho quet, the kho quet has been replaced with labneh for a Mediterranean-Asian twist. A special note, please be aware that the vegetables are actually served raw as stated on the menu, and are seasonal, which means that it may not be the “standard” carrot and cucumber sticks that you may expect.
Dessert options include a choux bun with plum and sacha nuts, a cashew nut parfait with jackfruit tatin and coffee kombucha and a warm madeline with vanilla cream and banana cardamom.
**Bookings are essential, as the venue books out very quickly, although it never feels crowded. Menu subject to change based on availability and seasonality
Address: 2 Street No. 11, An Phu Ward, HCMC
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lua.hcmc/
Opening hours: 11am - 2pm, 6pm - 10:30pm (closed on Mondays)
Price per head (excl. drinks): between 500,000 VND - 1,000,000 VND including VAT and service charge
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