Brand story
The Hanoi pho we missed
The Hanoi pho we missed. This one bowl holds our deep love for Vietnam and a taste etched into our hearts. Through a traditional recipe, we bring the hospitality Vietnam has passed down for generations to everyone in Japan.
01 · 2018
When our life in Tokyo began
In 2018, when our life in Tokyo began, we noticed something. “There are so few restaurants in Japan that serve real Vietnamese food…” On business trips to North America we had found wonderful Vietnamese restaurants, yet in Japan we could hardly find one that came close.
As Vietnamese, even living in Japan, we could not forget the taste of the land we grew up in. Whenever we ate out, we looked for the traditional Vietnamese flavors we had known since childhood. Pho above all. Eaten morning, noon and night, it is the bowl that stands for Vietnam, and it never left our minds.
Of course, Tokyo had restaurants serving pho. But most of it was “Japanese-style pho”, a long way from real Vietnamese pho.
02
There were many reasons no one was serving real pho.
- “Pho doesn’t suit Japanese tastes.”
- “Pho isn’t a traditional Japanese dish.”
- “It’s hard to keep it going as a business.”
Still, the founders, who grew up in Vietnam and had traveled the world, were certain of one thing: real pho, the tradition Vietnam has passed down for centuries, is a dish that crosses borders.
“Then we’ll make it ourselves.”
03
Making pho was never simple
— Making pho was never simple. Where do you source ingredients that are hard to find in Japan? How much time, and how many hands, does it take to recreate a traditional recipe? The challenges were many.
What’s more, the single most important ingredient in pho is fresh pho noodles. In Vietnam, where pho is eaten every day, you can find a fresh-noodle maker in no time. In Japan there was none. The reason went in a circle: “No one makes them, so no one uses them. There’s no demand for fresh noodles, so even if you made them, they wouldn’t sell.”
04 · 2021
We opened our first restaurant in Tsukiji, Tokyo
In 2021, we finally met someone who would make fresh pho noodles for us. It was the middle of the pandemic, but we opened our first restaurant in Tsukiji, Tokyo.
05
What we haven’t changed since that day
Some things have not changed since that day. The broth is simmered slowly for over 14 hours. And we use no chemical seasonings.
06
It started with one shop in Tsukiji
From that one shop in Tsukiji, Viet Origin has grown to 7 restaurants: 6 in Tokyo and 1 in Chiba. The bowl our founders, Take Hitonari and Dinh Thi Tu, searched so long to find is the one we will keep serving, unchanged.
