Bún Bò Huế

The food of Huế is unlike any other regional food in Vietnam, and it should not be reduced to one dish, but, if you have to narrow it down to one dish, Bún Bò Huế is the dish. Huếfood is a style that evokes a royal past.

Feudal lords of the Nguyễn family made Huế the capital of Vietnam in 1802—a status the city held until 1945.

Huế is still referred to as the Imperial City, and Huế’s best-known dish is the noodle soup called bún bò Huế.

It is a spicy, sour number, crammed with fermented shrimp paste, lemongrass, ginger, pork knuckle, banana blossoms, and noodles.

But bún bò Huế is just the beginning; there’s far more to ancient royal Huế food than this noodle soup.

Imperial Huế food is predominantly made up of delicate, soft rice-cake-based dishes that arrive doused in nước mắm (Vietnamese fish sauce).

Today, you can find Huế-style restaurants all over Vietnam, but to learn about the full depth and variety of its more than 1,000 dishes and hundreds of years of history, you have to eat in Huế.