10 NYC Vietnamese restaurants serving delicious pho

The evacuation of Saigon marked the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, but it wasn’t until 1987 that Vietnamese restaurants began regularly popping up in New York City – and with them came pho, the cuisine’s signature soup. Pho Pasteur, which was named for a Saigon street rather than a hygienic boast and is now known as Pasteur Grill & Noodles, was the first, though the New York Times reviewed a café near Columbia University called Viet Nam in 1961, which was said to be the United States' only Vietnamese restaurant at the time.

Pho Pasteur led to a whole string of Vietnamese restaurants on Baxter Street behind the city lockup known as the Tombs. These places took their cues from the street food of Saigon, or more specifically the Mekong Delta southwest of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. Pho (pronounced “fa”) was the centerpiece of these menus, a bowl of beef soup with rice noodles offered in as many as 20 variations, based on the combinations of beef cuts tossed in the soup and size of the bowl.

In these restaurants, pho often came – along with basil, green chiles, and sprouts – with a half dozen bottled and homemade condiments with which the flavor could be altered, including chile oil, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, homemade chile vinegar, oyster sauce and others. But it turns out that pho had originated in the north around Hanoi, and Vietnamese restaurants like Hanoi House began to serve simpler and sparer northern versions of pho with better noodles, a richer broth, and fewer herbs and condiments.

And so the floodgates have opened for the mind-boggling number of variations available here now, some featuring chicken instead of beef, others entirely vegetarian, some offered in dry form, others based on seafood, and many with unusual or luxurious cuts of beef.

Here are 10 versions well worth sampling, some of which may change your ideas about pho.

Pasteur Grill & Noodles

It’s something of an urban miracle that New York’s first post-war Vietnamese restaurant is still standing and is as good as when I slurped my very first bowl of pho there. The room is still small, but more elegant, and 15 different bowls of pho are offered, most featuring classic combinations of raw sliced beef, extensively cooked brisket, tendon, tripe, and beef balls, served in a mellow beef broth boiled for hours, with slender and soft rice noodles. Dump the accompanying sprouts, basil, and jalapenos in the soup at your discretion – but do squeeze in the lime juice. Bowls of pho $13 to $17. 85 Baxter St., Chinatown

Pho Ga Vang

Pho ga – as opposed to pho bo, which is beef pho – is a chicken version of the noodle soup, reportedly becoming popular in Hanoi due to the high price of beef. It is a bit mellower, and often served with a generous quantity of poultry. In places like Houston, with extensive Vietnamese populations, the pho ga often has the giblets included. You can emulate this style by ordering the liver and gizzards separately on the appetizer menu, and then dumping them in your chicken pho. It comes in five variations, with a heart-shaped saucer of vinegary black pepper on the side. Bowls of chicken pho $14.99 or $15.99. 30 Market St., Chinatown

Lucy’s Vietnamese

If pho had been invented in Texas, this is what it might have been like. Lucy’s, with five locations in Brooklyn and Queens, whips up a beef pho using smoked brisket like they make in the Lone Star State, with some shitake mushrooms thrown in and an emphasis on cinnamon and ginger. Damn, it’s good! Bowl of smoked brisket pho $16.95. 112 Berry St., Williamsburg

Saigon Shack

If beef – and lots of it – is your focus in pho, Saigon Shack might be your place. The small space is located right on MacDougal’s crowded and historic Restaurant Row, where Bob Dylan once slung his guitar over his shoulder, and offers a luxury pho with a giant beef rib sticking out, almost overbalancing the bowl. My favorite, from a choice of 11, is the house special pho, which features raw beef, beef balls, fatty brisket, and the surprise inclusion of Vietnamese ham. Bowls of pho $14.95 to $24.95. 114 MacDougal St., Greenwich Village

Hanoi House

When Hanoi House opened in 2017, decorated like a shack with tropical storm shutters, it introduced us to northern style pho (known as “pho bac”), probably for the first time. The broth was darker, thinner, more beefy, and more oniony, the complement of meats limited to one or two, floating very thin noodles. It was furnished with a side of garlic vinegar instead of a phalanx of sauces, with an optional add-in of bone marrow – scoop the marrow into the soup and stir vigorously. Bowls of pho $19 to $30. 119 St. Marks Place, East Village

Moc Mac

Like Hanoi House, Moc Mac (which means “down to earth”) emulates a Vietnamese village. It, too, makes a bang-up northern-style pho, elegant in its simplicity, but in this case the soup is deconstructed. First the broth arrives boiling in a crock, with platters of ingredients ready to be tossed in on either side. Expensive at $28, but a filling and fun experience. More modest bowls of pho are also available. Most bowls of pho $16 to $21. 79 Second Ave., East Village

V Pho and Pizzeria

Sometimes restaurant real estate makes strange bedfellows – in this case a combination pizza parlor and Vietnamese restaurant in the Indian Village neighborhood of the Bronx. There's lots of uncommon Vietnamese food to be found there – including three dishes featuring snails, a common snack back in Vietnam. With 10 combinations offered, the pho is a mixture of southern and northern styles, distinguished by the inclusion of a fresh herb you might not have had before: rau ram, tasting pungently of smoke and mud. Bowls of pho $13 to $17. 2004 Williamsbridge Rd., Morris Park

Huong Xuan

Some years ago, when I wrote a story on pho in Houston for Lucky Peach magazine, I couldn’t help but notice that many Vietnamese immigrants were eating their pho for breakfast with only beef balls, instead of the complicated mixture of beef cuts one often finds. This style of pho is available at Elmhurst newcomer Huong Xuan, which also offers 14 other forms of pho, including one with beef cubes and tendon. Bowls of pho $12.50 to $13.95. 40-10 74th St., Elmhurst

Banh Shop House

This revolutionary Vietnamese restaurant appeared incongruously on the Upper West Side five years ago, offering rare ingredients in dishes we were already familiar with. It offered pho ga with gizzards and gestated chicken egg, and also a dry vegan pho with the excellent broth and all the other ingredients on the side. It reminds us that the word “pho” originally referred to the noodles, but eventually became a synecdoche for the whole soup. Bowls of pho $17.95 to $19.95. 942 Amsterdam Ave., Upper West Side

La Dong

La Dong is an elegant restaurant just west of Union Square that explores the breadth of Vietnamese cuisine, with some Thai influences thrown in. There is a catalog of pho dishes that runs to seven examples, including “dry” duck and chicken examples that deploy the noodles in a heap at the side, and a luxe version of Hanoi pho bac that features two kinds of Wagyu beef, with garlic vinegar and bird’s eye chiles as garnishes. Bowls of pho $21 to $35. 17 East 17th St., Flatiron