One family. Two restaurants. Since 2018.

My grandmother's recipes, passed down to my mother. The first batch of broth went on the stove in 2018. Two restaurants now.

Oliver Ngo, co-founder of Vietnamese Street Kitchen, outside the restaurant in Birmingham

In 2018 we set out to give Birmingham a proper family-run Vietnamese kitchen. Birmingham already had Vietnamese takeaways and a couple of chain bowls. What it didn't have was a family-run restaurant serving the food the way you'd eat it at home in Hanoi: share three things, pass them round, top the broth up.

Since 2018, the recipes haven't moved. The pho still simmers for twenty-five hours. The bun cha is still grilled on cast-iron, not in a salamander. The bao buns are still proved in-house overnight. The only thing that's changed is we have two restaurants now.

A wall of painted Vietnamese street posters inside Vietnamese Street Kitchen Birmingham

Co-founder

We opened in 2018 with nothing but my grandmother's recipes and one goal: prove to Brum that Vietnamese food belongs on the map. Five kitchens later, still family-run. Still independent.

Two you can book today: the Bullring or Resorts World. Same broth, simmered for 25 hours. Same recipes, same love for the food, same goal: proving to Birmingham that Vietnamese food is world-class. Growing the business never made the food easier, only made getting it right matter more.

Oliver Ngo Co-founder, Vietnamese Street Kitchen

The goal

Vietnamese food is the best in the world.

I've always known that. The hard part is getting people to try it.

Vietnamese food can feel unfamiliar: a menu you don't recognise, a spot that doesn't feel right, and people walk past. We took the busiest spots in the city, rooms you'd want to sit in anyway, and service that makes ordering easy. Get people through the door, sit them down, put the food in front of them.

Because once you taste it, there's nothing scary about it. Our job is to get the first bowl in front of you.

A Vietnamese Street Kitchen place setting: patterned plate, red chopsticks and a bamboo tray
A sharing spread at Vietnamese Street Kitchen Birmingham, small plates passed around the table

The restaurants, in order

  1. 2018

    Where it started

    A tiny kitchen in Brindleyplace, my grandmother's recipes, a handful of tables and more demand than seats.

  2. 2019

    Our first full-service: Resorts World

    We opened our first full-service restaurant at Resorts World, the complex beside the NEC, where we proved to Birmingham who we are.

  3. 2020

    The flagship: Bullring

    Mid-pandemic, we opened our biggest restaurant yet: the UK's biggest Vietnamese restaurant, at the Bullring. The city-centre kitchen moved here from Brindleyplace.

  4. 2023

    Going express

    An express counter at Resorts World: quick bowls and bao, a nod to the small kitchen we started in.

  5. 2024

    The family grows: Seafood City

    We opened our sister restaurant, Seafood City. Same family, a new table.

Come taste the story

One broth since 2018, at Bullring and Resorts World.