The Temptation

The Michelin Guide has listed it three years in a row, in 2024, 2025 and 2026.

The chef is La Thua An, and the restaurant tells his story itself. He was born in Hue. When he was six the family moved to France, where his father, a school principal at home, took work in a Chinese restaurant owned by a friend.

At thirteen the son started in that same kitchen and learned Cantonese cooking there, while his mother kept Vietnamese food on the table at home and he went to French school.

At seventeen he went to the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. After it he cooked in resorts abroad, in New Caledonia and in St Maarten, and came back to Vietnam in 2008. He opened The Temptation in Da Nang.

His dessert is called The Sweet Egg Nest of Han River, and he says it came from a quiet morning on the river. A handmade bamboo bird cage is set down in front of you. You lift it.

Inside is an egg of coconut mousse in a thin caramel shell you crack, on a nest of fried apple.

On the savoury side, the duck foie gras is pan fried, flamed with cognac and served with truffle honey and crunchy nuts, next to a cold salad of green mango, melon and duck breast cured for two months.

The tartare is Hokkaido scallop and carabineros prawn, finished with Sturia caviar from France.

The room seats sixty people in two indoor areas, both air conditioned. Lunch and dinner, Tuesday to Sunday. Monday is dinner only.