Pho, the kind of dish you can get from a street stall for around 60 yen, has been transformed in Saigon into a $170 (about ¥25,500) omakase dinner. Peter Cuong Franklin, the chef behind Michelin one-star ANAN Saigon, served a 13-course pho omakase dinner limited to 14 seats in August 2026 at his counter Pot Au Pho in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. Reported by VnExpress on August 8, the venture upends travelers' assumptions about “cheap Vietnamese food.” With a trip from Japan in mind, here is a practical breakdown of the price, the dishes, and the location.
A Michelin-starred chef's “pho omakase,” served at a 14-seat counter
The venue, Pot Au Pho, is Franklin's own restaurant on Ton That Dam Street in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City — a tiny 14-seat space wrapped around the kitchen like a sushi counter, open evenings only and by reservation. This particular dinner was a joint project with Japanese chef Shozo (of FUME restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, a Vietnam resident of nine years), who cooked alongside Franklin, and was built as a 13-course tasting menu.
Franklin is a Vietnamese-American born in Da Lat. After working as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, he trained at Le Cordon Bleu and honed his craft at restaurants including nahm in Bangkok and Alinea in Chicago. ANAN Saigon, which he opened in 2017, made Asia's 50 Best Restaurants in 2021, and in 2023 won Ho Chi Minh City's first Michelin star in the inaugural Vietnam Michelin Guide. This is the chef taking pho, the national dish, apart and rebuilding it course by course — the concept behind this “pho omakase.”
$110 for the course plus pairing brings the total to $170 — a breakdown in dong and yen
According to the report, the tasting menu costs 2,900,000 dong (about $110), with a drink pairing adding 1,600,000 dong on top, bringing the total to roughly $170. Compared with a single bowl of street-stall pho (10,000–15,000 dong, about ¥60–90), the food alone works out to over 100 times the price.
| Item | Local price (dong) | Yen conversion (approximate) | Reference (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tasting menu (13 courses) | 2,900,000 dong | About ¥17,400 | About $110 |
| Drink pairing | 1,600,000 dong (additional) | About ¥9,600 | ― |
| Total (including pairing) | About 4,500,000 dong | About ¥27,000 | About $170 |
The conversion used here is 10,000 dong ≈ ¥60, and 1 USD ≈ ¥150. On a dollar basis, the $170 total comes to about ¥25,500; on a dong basis, about ¥27,000 — a gap that falls within normal exchange-rate fluctuation. A diner named Nhan Hien Nhi was quoted saying, “For an omakase this original, a price close to 5,000,000 dong isn't expensive” (VnExpress). At about 4,500,000 dong including the pairing, that “close to 5,000,000” feeling lines up with the actual bill.
From sea urchin beef tartare to aged duck pho: what the 13 courses take apart
The course breaks pho down into its components — broth, noodles, meat — and reassembles them into different dishes. Reported courses include the following.
- Beef tartare topped with sea urchin
- Duck pho made with dry-aged duck
- A pho soufflé accented with truffle
- Eel ramen paired with peanut worms (a type of marine annelid) from Ha Long Bay
The use of Vietnamese ingredients is distinctive, bringing Western fine-dining vocabulary like dry-aging and truffle into a pho foundation. Franklin's usual menu at Pot Au Pho is reportedly 12 courses for 3,500,000 dong (about $134); this 13-course collaborative version is positioned as a special edition layering a Japanese chef's perspective on top of that.
Why “luxury pho” works in Saigon, a city built on street food
A $170 bowl of pho looks outlandish at first, but it actually fits the trajectory of Saigon's dining scene. Ho Chi Minh City has become the city with the most Michelin Guide selections in Vietnam, and a movement called Cuisine Mới (New Vietnamese Cuisine), which blends modern technique with Vietnamese ingredients and flavors, is growing. Starred full-course meals priced in the 3,000,000–4,000,000-dong range — a relative bargain compared with equivalent restaurants worldwide — also give this kind of experimentation room to grow.
This premiumization isn't limited to one restaurant. A counter in District 1 opened independently by the former head chef of Esta,“Vore,” and its 12-course menu,are among a string of small-seat, omakase-style restaurants digging into Vietnamese ingredients that keep appearing. Nobu, co-founded by Robert De Niro,is set to open in a high-rise tower in District 1 in 2026,and with that move layered on top, Saigon is broadening from a city known only for “cheap and delicious” food into a food city that can compete at the high end too. The pho omakase is an attempt to bring the national dish to the front line of that shift.
Planning a trip from Japan — practical notes on location, timing, and cost
Pot Au Pho is at 91 Ton That Dam Street, District 1. It is within walking distance of sightseeing hubs like Ben Thanh Market and Dong Khoi Street, making it easy to fit into an evening of your trip. Since it is a 14-seat, evenings-only, reservation-only counter, you should assume you will need to book early once you decide to go. Collaborative dinners like this one run for limited periods, so check the restaurant's latest announcements for the current menu and dates before visiting.
With the pairing, expect to pay around ¥25,500–27,000 per person. That's comparable to an equivalent omakase in Japan (a sushi or French tasting course), plus the added angle of a “deconstructed pho” you can only experience locally. If you're traveling on a budget, it's realistic to limit a splurge like this to one night and cover the rest of your meals at street stalls and local eateries. For the full range of price points around the city,Ho Chi Minh City dining guidewe've broken down everything from ¥150-range street stalls to restaurants in the ¥10,000 range. The gap between a ¥60 bowl of pho and a ¥25,000 bowl of pho coexisting in the same city is exactly what makes Saigon's food scene interesting right now.
