Egg coffee, hidden cafés and pavement tea

Climb narrow stairs to secret rooftop cafés, taste the whipped egg coffee born of a milk shortage, and learn to sit for hours over iced tea and sunflower seeds.

Area

Food & nights

Start from

Old Quarter

Distance

walking distance

Time needed

half a day

Best season

All year; egg coffee is best on a cold winter morning

Difficulty

Easy

Transport

On foot

Tickets & rules

None

Why go

Coffee in Hanoi is not a quick hit. It is a reason to sit down, to talk, to watch the street. The city has thousands of cafés, from pavement stools with a thermos to old apartments converted into hideaways reached through a clothes shop and three flights of stairs.

The drink itself is strong. Vietnamese coffee is mostly robusta, dripped slowly through a small metal filter, the phin, and served black or with sweet condensed milk, hot or over ice. Then there are Hanoi’s own inventions: egg coffee, coconut coffee, coffee with yogurt.

Spend a morning hopping between three or four places, and an afternoon doing as Hanoians do: iced tea on the pavement, a dish of sunflower seeds, and nowhere to be.

The story

Egg coffee, ca phe trung, is usually credited to Nguyen Van Giang, a bartender at the Sofitel Metropole hotel. In 1946, when fresh milk was scarce, he whisked egg yolk with sugar and condensed milk into a thick, sweet cream and spooned it over coffee. He later opened his own café, and the family business still serves it today, a short walk from the lake. The cup is often set in a bowl of hot water to keep it warm.

Coffee came to Vietnam with French missionaries in the nineteenth century, and plantations spread across the Central Highlands. Today Vietnam is one of the largest coffee producers in the world, second only to Brazil by most counts.

Tea is older and, in the north, arguably more important. Tra da, weak green iced tea, is served free or almost free with meals and on every corner. Along Nha Tho street by the cathedral, young people sit at night with tra chanh, iced lime tea, cracking sunflower seeds and gossiping.

The classic Hanoi café is up high. Many of the city’s best are on the upper floors of old buildings, with balconies overlooking the lake or a busy junction: entrances you would never notice, through a corridor, past a family’s scooters and up a staircase, until a small room with a view opens up.

Getting there

All the cafés here are in the Old Quarter and around Hoan Kiem Lake. Look for signs pointing up narrow stairs, or doorways where locals vanish inwards.

No need to plan much; wander and climb.

A suggested plan

1. 8:00Black coffee with condensed milk on a pavement stool to start.
2. 9:30Egg coffee at a long-standing café near the lake.
3. 11:00A rooftop or balcony café overlooking Hoan Kiem.
4. 14:00Coconut coffee or coffee with yogurt in the afternoon heat.
5. EveningIced lime tea with sunflower seeds by St Joseph’s Cathedral.

Where to stay

The Old Quarter or the lanes around the cathedral; both are full of cafés and give you an excuse for an early or late visit.

Good to know

• Order ca phe sua da for iced coffee with milk, ca phe den for black.
• Vietnamese coffee is very strong; one cup goes a long way, and two can keep you up at night.
• Buy beans or ground coffee from small roasters as a gift.
• Upstairs cafés may have very steep stairs; take it slow.