ArchDaily's 10 Vietnamese Cafés That "Brought Heritage Back to Life"—The Frontline of Architectural Revival in Hue, Saigon, and Quy Nhon

The scope of the ArchDaily feature themed on "everyday heritage"

The feature "Everyday Heritage: 10 Vietnamese Coffee Shops Reviving Small-Scale Traditional Buildings," which the architecture-specialist media ArchDaily released in 2026, is drawing attention in Vietnam's café-architecture circles. The crux of the feature is that it gathered 10 cafés reviving "everyday small-scale buildings" — not symbolic architecture of tourist spots — from 1950s modernist villas to prewar townhouses, French colonial-era villas, and Hue's traditional wooden houses.

The 10 chosen by ArchDaily (by architecture firm and building type)

Three design principles shared by heritage cafés

First, "subtraction over addition." Like Okkio Duy Tan Caffe, the core approach is to use only "half" of a French colonial villa, adding no new ornamentation and instead exposing the original columns, beams, tiles, and ceiling decoration. It is also structured to attract architectural photographers and spread across social media.

Second, "don't sever the urban context." As with Running Bean by Hanoi's Red5studio and Bơ Bakery by Ho Chi Minh City's Nhabe Scholae, these cafés open onto the street and keep their terraces and façades as part of the streetscape. Unlike Saigon's "cafés turned into photo studios," the design restrains any outward pressure on the street.

Third, "a thorough commitment to materials." In Hue, DeHue Coffee (son.studio) exposes the structural timber of traditional wooden construction, while in Quy Nhon, Adiuvat (A+H architect) preserves the "pebble wash-out" façade—a surface finish embedded with small stones—typical of pre-war townhouses. The common thread is letting the materials themselves read as the design.

Industry response—the "third wave" driven by small-scale architectural renovation

Vietnam's café industry: Against the four major chains—The Coffee House, Highlands Coffee, Phuc Long, and Trung Nguyen—independent, architecture-focused cafés are increasingly positioned a step above coffee's "third wave." ArchDaily's selection this time is almost entirely independent, architect-collaboration cafés—a segment communicated on a different layer from the mass-market chains.

The architects and studios: Mid-sized Vietnamese architecture firms such as sgnhA, Son Studio, T3 Architects, Red5studio, A+H architect, and Nhabe Scholae have begun presenting café architecture as a distinct body of work within their portfolios. One reason is that cafés can be photographed and published sooner than homes or offices, making them easier to expose to overseas media.

Property owners: Rather than "tearing down old buildings to rebuild," a model of bringing in café operators—architecture firm included—as tenants to regenerate the space is spreading across Districts 1 and 3 of Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi's Old Quarter, and Hue and Quy Nhon. In reality, the three-part set of preserving the original form, reinforcing the structure, and using the space effectively is pushing rent levels upward.

Points of interest from a Japanese reader's and editor's perspective

First, DeHue Coffee in Hue and Adiuvat in Quy Nhon lie off the main tourist routes of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, giving travelers a reason to tour cafés in provincial cities. Hue offers Kyoto-like wooden heritage, and Quy Nhon offers the streetscape of pre-war townhouses—themes that fit Japanese magazines and web media for Vietnam travel articles.

Second, Okkio Duy Tan Caffe's revival of a French colonial villa is an entry-level "architecture appreciation × café" spot within walking distance of central Saigon. With a location where you can drop in for 15–20 minutes on the way to a Vietnamese goods shop, it looks set to become a staple feature for Vietnam travel media.

Third, features that compare these with Japan's renovation cafés—the machiya cafés of Kanazawa, the alley cafés of Kyoto, the hillside cafés of Onomichi—work both ways, for inbound visitors to Japan and for those visiting Vietnam. Naming the architecture firms in these introductions also lets you reach readers closer to specialist magazines.

Industry ripple effects—the triangle of architecture × coffee × heritage

If this trend expands, Vietnam's heritage cafés will function as a three-layer medium that serves at once as an architecture firm's showcase, a coffee tasting room, and a photo spot for tour guides. It is a rare intersection where the specialty coffee industry (the shift from phin drip to the third wave), the reuse of provincial real estate, and architects' career-building all move at the same time. Similar movements are likely to emerge in second-tier cities such as Hoi An, Da Lat, and Hai Phong.

Basic information table

Related articles

• "Pay what you feel it's worth": a former Hanoi finance man saves Vietnamese coffee culture with the traditional filter "Phinoi"
• A Vietnamese café turns into a 'photo studio' — foreign tourists astonished by a camera corps of over 50
• Saigon's Hung Kings Temple: a hidden spot transformed from a World War I memorial into a sacred site of ancestor worship

Summary

Vietnam's café culture is quietly shifting from "a place where the coffee is good" to "a place you go to read the architecture." ArchDaily's feature is a public record of that trend, and a heritage café tour spanning Hue, Quy Nhon, Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh City looks set to become a new goal for Japanese travelers.

Source

• Everyday Heritage: 10 Vietnamese Coffee Shops Reviving Small-Scale Traditional Buildings（ArchDaily）
• ArchDaily top page (primary source from the architecture firms)