At The Anam Mui Ne, a new pop up dining experience is quietly redefining what resort gastronomy can feel like, trading the usual buzz of a hotel restaurant for something far more hushed and exacting. Staged inside The Indochine Restaurant, the concept welcomes no more than eight guests each evening, seated across just four tables in a private space that opens onto the restaurant’s outdoor terrace. It runs only twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from six to ten in the evening, a deliberate scarcity that turns dinner into something closer to a private audience with the kitchen than a standard night out.
The chef behind the experience, Le Huu Nghia, has built two distinct five course tasting menus that draw on the rhythms of the season and the discipline of European technique, filtered through an unmistakably Asian sensibility. Each menu is conceived as a kind of narrative arc, guiding diners through a sequence of contrasts, delicate versus rich, warm versus cool, crisp versus yielding, so that no two courses ever feel like they are making the same argument. For those who want the full immersion, curated wine pairings are available to accompany the journey course by course.
Tuesday’s menu opens with a nori tart topped with salmon belly tartare and salmon roe, brightened with gherkin, shallot, sesame, ginger and a wasabi mayonnaise that gives the dish its final snap of heat. From there the meal turns toward the sea in earnest with chargrilled abalone, dressed in a housemade oyster sauce and finished with pickled kombu for a briny, umami rich counterpoint. A daisy soup follows, a quiet, contemplative course built on vegetable broth and bonito flakes, before the menu shifts registers entirely with a pan seared foie gras paired against fig, apple purée, pistachio and candied ginger, a plate that plays sweetness and richness off one another with real confidence. The main course arrives in the form of a grilled filet mignon, finished with a red wine sauce and rounded out by carrot purée, mushrooms and baby broccoli, before petit fours close the evening on a sweet, indulgent note, a spread that includes chocolate bonbon, choux pastry, sesame cheesecake and raspberry chocolate.
Thursday’s menu tells a different story, one that leans further into seafood and bold, cross cultural flavor combinations. It begins with a shrimp wrapped scallop, dressed with caviar and a coriander aioli alongside pickled shallots, a first course built for immediate impact. A beef filet mignon tartare comes next, brightened with ginger jam, nori and a lemon mayonnaise that keeps the richness of the beef in check. The menu’s most arresting course may well be what follows, a foie gras phở consommé layered with shiitake mushrooms and a thread of truffle oil, a dish that essentially distills the soul of Vietnamese comfort food into a fine dining register. Chargrilled hamachi crudo comes next, finished with a ponzu reduction, pickled jalapeño and guacamole, a course that moves fluidly between Japanese, Mexican and Vietnamese influences without ever feeling scattered. The evening reaches its main course with a pan seared turbot, dressed in a lemon ginger sauce and served with lotus seed purée, pickled coconut tubers and ikura, before a strawberry mille feuille with goat’s cheese mousse brings the night to its finale, an elegant, slightly savory take on a French classic.
Reservations must be made at least twelve hours ahead, a reminder that this is not a walk in experience but something that rewards planning, much like the meal itself rewards patience and attention.
Beyond the pop up, the broader story of The Anam Mui Ne is one of considered, deliberate growth. It is the second property from The Anam Group, an independently owned and operated hospitality company that first made its mark with The Anam Cam Ranh in 2017. That original resort sits along three hundred meters of beachfront on the Cam Ranh peninsula, a stretch of coastline known for logging more than three hundred sunny days a year, and it now comprises seventy seven villas and one hundred thirty six rooms and suites, along with a French inspired fine dining restaurant, an all day dining restaurant, a Vietnamese restaurant and bar, a classical bar, a beach club, an extensive spa, indoor and outdoor movie theaters, three swimming pools, an eighteen hole mini golf course and even an onsite sustainable farm.
The Anam Mui Ne, which opened in January 2023, carries the same design language forward, one rooted in the aesthetics of Vietnam’s Indochine era and built around the brand’s twin pillars of what the group calls Indochine Charm and Modern Luxury, a blend of colonial period elegance, attentive Vietnamese hospitality and thoroughly contemporary comfort. The name itself nods to history, referencing An Nam, the historical name for Central Vietnam during the period of French Indochina. Set on 1.2 hectares of beachfront in the popular coastal town of Mui Ne, the resort offers sweeping ocean views across its 127 rooms and suites, including seven expansive 142 square meter suites with private pools and a 122 square meter presidential suite. Its dining program extends beyond the Indochine pop up to include an all day dining restaurant and grill, a beachside restaurant and bar, and a lobby bar, while its amenities round out with a spa, two large swimming pools, a ballroom, conference rooms, a fitness center, yoga room, kids club and gift shop.
For guests drawn to the theater of a great tasting menu, the appeal of this particular experience lies less in scale and more in restraint. Eight guests, four tables, two nights a week. It is fine dining stripped of spectacle and reassembled around intimacy, giving Chef Nghia room to cook with a kind of ambition that a full dining room rarely allows.