During my stint as an expat in Vietnam from 2007 to 2008, The Astronomer gifted me five “fancy” dinners for my 26th birthday. We were each earning $750 per month working for an NGO at the time, so this present felt like quite the splurge, even though the bill for the two of us was well under $100 in most cases.

Back then, the upscale dining scene in Saigon was largely composed of international restaurants. According to Gastronomy’s archives, my birthday dinners included a trio of old-school French restaurants (La Fourchette, Augustin, and Le Toit Gourmand) and a stop at the Italian restaurant inside the swanky Park Hyatt. My fifth dinner featured a modern Cambodian tasting menu in Siem Reap while visiting Angkor Wat.

Fast forward to 2025, and the Saigon fine dining scene is bursting at the seams. While there are still plenty of international dining options around, the rise of Cuisine Mới, or New Vietnamese cuisine, is an inspiring new development spearheaded by Vietnamese chefs bringing together contemporary techniques and trends with Vietnamese sensibilities.

Ciel from chef Viet Hong opened in 2024 in Thao Dien, an outer district popular among expats and accessible via the new metro system. The building that houses the restaurant — Scandinavian minimalism meets lush Saigon landscaping — was built from the ground up and reminded me some of the grounds of El Celler De Can Roca in Girona, Spain.

Before opening the restaurant, the chef staged at Noma in Copenhagen, Barcelona’s Disfrutar, and Sézanne in Tokyo. The influences from each of these stops in his culinary education are apparent throughout the 10-course progression.

We requested seats along the U-shaped counter with views of the open kitchen. The full tasting menu was priced at $120++ per person. Ciel offered a special kids’ menu for June that included many of the same dishes as the regular menu, plus lobster pasta, for $75++.

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A trio of amuse bouche: two one-biters highlighting lobster (with mangosteen, green curry) and shrimp (with shiso, calamansi) imported from Japan, and a morel mushroom tart.

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Local flower crab with tomato consommé.

Drunken chicken marinated in yellow wine and served cold with its liver, heart, and gizzard.

Tender and buttery fish maw served over egg custard and finished with croutons and cheese. A signature dish for good reason — an avalanche of umami that was giving bún riêu vibes.

Palate cleansing lemon sorbet with olive oil and flaky salt.

Chinese broccoli with foie gras, black truffles, and cheese sauce.

Pigeon with eggplant and miso hollandaise.

Abalone rice.

Seafood soup with a poached egg yolk, house-cured fish “noodles,” and sea asparagus.

Frozen coconut with lime and caviar.

Warm madeleines with whipped cream.

Our evening at Ciel was lovely from start to finish. The pacing was generous, while the service was capable and conducted mostly in English. Compared to other restaurants in Saigon defining New Vietnamese cuisine, Ciel’s point of view leaned more international in scope. I appreciated that Chef Hong didn’t feel obligated to hew so closely to Vietnamese source material and drew inspiration from his personal journey instead. Even though The Astronomer ultimately enjoyed the cooking and flavors more at Michelin-starred Ăn Ăn (play-by-pay to come), with its clear Vietnamese through line, we both agreed that the sky’s the limit at Ciel.