Buy a Marou chocolate bar at the airport on your way home from Vietnam, and eat at Pizza 4P’s in Ho Chi Minh City. For travelers like that, July 2026 became a slightly special month. Brands you thought you could only get locally opened stores one after another the same summer, in New York and at Singapore's Changi Airport. It's also a story about how you choose souvenirs.
Pizza 4P’s, Marou, and Hasaki each make their first overseas openings in July 2026
ベトナム紙トゥオイチェが2026年7月25日に報じたところによると、3つのベトナムブランドがほぼ同時期に海外へ踏み出した。ピザ4P’sは米ニューヨーク・ブルックリンのグリーンポイントに米国1号店を開き、チョコレートのMaison Marou（メゾン・マルゥ）はシンガポール・チャンギ空港ターミナル1に海外初のブティックを構えた。コスメ小売のHasakiも米カリフォルニアに初の海外店舗を出した。いずれも本拠はホーチミンだ。ピザ4P’sは2011年にホーチミンで生まれ、いまはベトナム国内35店に加え、カンボジア・日本・インドネシア・インドへ海外展開し、世界全体で40店以上になる。Marouも2011年創業で、国内26店を足場に国外へ出た。
The Brooklyn store uses Da Lat burrata; the Changi store is open from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m.
Pizza 4P’s' first U.S. store is at 38 Norman Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, inside a complex called '50 Norman.' It opened in early July 2026, with reservations via Resy. Burrata made at its own workshop in Da Lat is the signature, and it carries over its 'local ingredients meets wood-fired' line as-is, with dishes like smoked-duck and Meyer-lemon burrata and oyster-and-seaweed spaghetti.
Marou is in the departure hall of Changi Airport Terminal 1, unit 02-K26, near Gate D41. After a two-week soft opening, it held its grand opening on July 23, 2026, and operates daily from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. Single-origin chocolate bars, pastries and drinking chocolate line the shelves. Made bean-to-bar from Vietnamese cacao, using New Zealand milk and cream alone, it's the bar the New York Times called in 2016 "the best chocolate you've never tasted." If you have a few hours at Changi on a layover, your Vietnam souvenir shopping can be finished right here.
Marou you can buy at Changi, and the experience only the Ho Chi Minh City flagship offers
Once they can be bought abroad, the substance of a souvenir's value swaps out. Marou at Changi sells "the convenience of getting it mid-journey," while choosing wrapping at the District 3 flagship in Ho Chi Minh City and having it assembled into a gift on the spot is an experience you can only buy locally. The "thing"—a chocolate bar—crosses borders, but the memory of a place, including the storefront, the service and even the shop's smell, doesn't. Conversely, local brands that haven't yet crossed borders gain scarcity: "you can only buy it here."From a bicycle peddler to 34 countries: 50 years of 'Thai Ky flour', a case of steadily going global, and Pizza 4P’s, which charges into overseas cities on buzz—for travelers, the meaning of a souvenir is completely different between the two.
All three built a domestic store network before crossing borders
All three brands keep Vietnamese ingredients and stories at their core while, in the markets they enter, selling their very "born in Vietnam" origin as the draw. Brooklyn's Pizza 4P’s is talked about with its backstory of being "born in Vietnam, founded by a Japanese couple," and Changi's Marou sits on the shelf under the billing "Vietnam's finest bean-to-bar." This is also the flip side of foreign food and drink brands coming into Vietnam, and in HanoiChaPanda, one of China's major tea chains, lands for the first time. The sectors are all over the map -- chocolate, pizza, cosmetics -- but each built a solid domestic store network before going abroad. Pizza 4P’s has 35 stores at home, Marou 26, and Hasaki over 330. The order is to build the template for scale and quality control at home, then export it.
For brands you can buy abroad too, stick to the local-only items
Your souvenir plan for a Ho Chi Minh City trip can be reworked like this. For brands you can also buy abroad, like Marou and Pizza 4P’s, narrow down to limited items or custom goods available only at the local flagship. If you're worried about shelf life or portability, one option is to top up on Marou chocolate bars at the end, during your Changi connection. On top of that, as with mooncake season,A gift you can only meet in seasonand local brands that haven't yet crossed borders, prioritize as one-of-a-kind items you can only buy on the spot. What you can buy anywhere, save for the end of the trip; what you can only buy here, get mid-trip. Next time you walk Ho Chi Minh City, choosing shops with that two-tier approach is smart.
Sources
- Tuoi Tre News「Vietnamese brands step up overseas expansion」(2026-07-25)
- Greenpointers「Pizza 4P’s Opens in Greenpoint’s 50 Norman Complex」
- Yahoo News Singapore「Vietnam’s chocolate brand Maison Marou makes overseas debut at Changi Airport Terminal 1」
- Time Out Singapore「Maison Marou at Changi Airport T1」
