London’s Vietnamese food has an address, and it is a single road in the east. Kingsland Road, running north out of Shoreditch, has held the city’s Vietnamese restaurants for decades and is known to everyone who eats there as Pho Mile.
That concentration is the useful fact, because it means one walk gives you a dozen options and a failed first choice costs you ninety seconds rather than a journey.
Here is what is worth knowing, with the rules read off each restaurant’s own site. One of them publishes almost nothing at all, which is its own kind of recommendation.
On Pho Mile
Sông Quê Café, Kingsland Road
The one everybody names, and the reason people started coming to this road.
Sông Quê Café
- Address
- 134 Kingsland Road, E2 8DY. A second site at 44 Commercial Street, E1 6LT
- Nearest
- Hoxton for Kingsland Road, Aldgate East for Commercial Street
- Hours
- Kingsland Road Monday to Friday lunch midday to 3pm and dinner 5.30pm to 11pm. Saturday midday to 11pm. Sunday and bank holidays midday to 10.30pm
- Booking
- Through the form on their own site, or 020 7613 3222, or info@songquecafe.com
- Standing
- Authentic Vietnamese cooking, and the Kingsland Road room that made the street’s reputation
How to get in
For years their entire website was an address and a menu, with no hours and no booking policy, which is what a restaurant looks like when it has never needed to advertise. That has changed: Kingsland Road now publishes its hours, and they contain the thing worth planning around, a two and a half hour closure between lunch and dinner on weekdays. Saturday runs straight through. They also won Time Out’s Cheap Eats Award in 2003 and have been in the guides ever since. The Commercial Street site is the one to use if you are coming from the City rather than the north.
Central
Cây Tre, Dean Street
The Soho room, from a founder who has been doing this in London for over twenty years.
Cây Tre
- Address
- 42 to 43 Dean Street, Soho, W1D 4PZ. A second site in Shoreditch
- Nearest
- Tottenham Court Road or Leicester Square
- Hours
- Monday to Thursday 11am to 10.30pm. Friday and Saturday 11am to 11.30pm. Sunday 11am to 10pm
- Booking
- 020 7317 9118 or gm@caytresoho.co.uk. Group packages for six to thirty people
- Standing
- Founded by Hieu Bui, who has spent over twenty years building the Vietnamese food scene in the UK
How to get in
Eleven in the morning to half eleven at night on a Friday and Saturday is a long day, and it makes this one of the few Vietnamese kitchens in central London you can use for a late dinner rather than an early one. Groups are handled properly here, from six up to thirty, with set feasting or canapes rather than a scramble for a big table. There is a cocktail list built around Saigon, which is unusual: most Vietnamese restaurants in London treat drinks as an afterthought.
Lunch and catering
Banh Mi Bay
Banh Mi Bay
- Address
- Three London sites: Holborn at 4 to 6 Theobald’s Road WC1X 8PN, Fitzrovia at 21 Rathbone Street W1T 1NF and the Surrey Quays food court on Redriff Road SE16 7LL
- Nearest
- Holborn or Chancery Lane for Theobald’s Road. Goodge Street for Fitzrovia
- Hours
- Holborn Monday to Friday midday to 3.30pm and 5.30pm to 9pm. Fitzrovia Monday to Friday 11.30am to 3pm. Surrey Quays every day 11.30am to 5pm
- Booking
- Online, plus catering with a minimum of 24 hours notice
- Standing
- Independent, and one of the larger Vietnamese event caterers in London
How to get in
The practical one. Three sites, quick lunches, and a catering arm that feeds hundreds to thousands of office workers a week, which they have been doing for over ten years. Only Holborn is a dine in room: Fitzrovia is take out and Surrey Quays is a food court counter, which is the distinction to get right before you walk there expecting a table. The rule to note is the notice period: catering needs a minimum of twenty four hours, so a same day office order is not happening. For a sit down meal it is a lunch restaurant more than a dinner one.
What to know
Go to Kingsland Road at least once. The stretch from Shoreditch north through Haggerston holds more Vietnamese restaurants than anywhere else in Britain. Walking it and picking by the window is a better method than choosing in advance.
Pho is a breakfast dish in Vietnam, which is why several of these open at eleven and why a bowl at midday is more authentic than one at eight in the evening.
Mind the afternoon gap. Sông Quê shuts between three and half five on a weekday, which catches people out more than the closing time does. Saturday runs straight through. Most of the rest of Kingsland Road still publishes no hours at all, which is not carelessness but a generation of family restaurants that never needed a website to be full.
Book ahead for six or more. Cây Tre handles groups up to thirty with proper packages. Most of Kingsland Road does not, and turning up with eight people on a Saturday is optimistic.
Everything here was taken from each restaurant’s own published information and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Sông Quê have started publishing hours since the last check, so those are now here. Confirm before you travel.
Vietnamese restaurants and banh mi near me
Three clusters cover it. Sông Quê Café is in Shoreditch, by Hoxton for Kingsland Road or Aldgate East for Commercial Street. Cây Tre is in Soho, by Tottenham Court Road or Leicester Square. Banh Mi Bay is in Fitzrovia, by Holborn or Chancery Lane for Theobald’s Road, or Goodge Street. For banh mi near me in the middle of town, start with the Fitzrovia one.
Where to go next
The restaurants guide holds the wider field, and the other cuisine pages are built the same way: Thai, Japanese, Chinese and Mexican.
Malaysian restaurants are the hardest of the group to time, because the good rooms open four or five nights a week and one of them takes bookings two months out.
Late night restaurants covers what is still cooking after most of this page has closed.
By neighbourhood: Shoreditch for Kingsland Road and Soho for Cây Tre.
Questions we get asked
What are the best Vietnamese restaurants in London?
Sông Quê Café at 134 Kingsland Road is the one that made the street’s reputation and the name most Londoners give first. Cây Tre on Dean Street is the best central option and the only one here open until half eleven at weekends. Banh Mi Bay is the practical choice for a quick lunch across three sites.
Where is the Vietnamese area of London?
Kingsland Road, running north out of Shoreditch through Haggerston, known to everyone who eats there as Pho Mile. It holds more Vietnamese restaurants than anywhere else in Britain, which means walking it and choosing by the window works better than picking one in advance. Hoxton is the nearest station.
Where can you eat Vietnamese food late in London?
Cây Tre on Dean Street in Soho, which runs to half past eleven on Friday and Saturday and half past ten from Monday to Thursday. Sông Quê on Kingsland Road now publishes its own, to eleven on weekdays and Saturday and half ten on a Sunday, though several of its neighbours still publish nothing at all.
Why do Vietnamese restaurants in London not publish opening hours?
Because a good number of them are long standing family restaurants that have never needed a website to fill the room. Sông Quê Café’s entire site is an address and a menu. It is not carelessness so much as a business that predates the expectation, and it means telephoning is the only reliable way to check.
Can you book a Vietnamese restaurant in London for a group?
Cây Tre is the one set up for it, with packages for groups from six up to thirty across its Soho and Shoreditch rooms, either feasting menus or canapes. Banh Mi Bay caters events and office deliveries but needs a minimum of twenty four hours notice. Most of Kingsland Road is not built for large parties.
What time should you eat pho?
Earlier than most people in London do. Pho is a breakfast dish in Vietnam, which is part of why several London Vietnamese restaurants open at eleven in the morning rather than at noon. A bowl at lunchtime is closer to how it is actually eaten than one at eight in the evening.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 111 in the guide.
Last checked 28 September 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
