Betoya's Brand Story
Nostalgic Hanoi Pho
In 2018, we altogether realized something.
“There are not many restaurants in Japan that serve authentic Vietnamese cuisine…”
When traveled to North America on business trips, for example, we were able to enjoy delicious Vietnamese food there, but there are few restaurants in Japan that can match that.
As Vietnamese, even though we lived in Japan, we could not forget the taste of cuisine in Vietnam where we were born and raised. Whenever we ate out, we searched for the delicious traditional Vietnamese taste we used to have. In particular, among them, Pho, the representative dish that Vietnamese could eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner was always in our hearts.
Of course, there were some Pho restaurants in Tokyo, but most of them were only “Japanese-style pho,” far different from authentic traditional Vietnamese pho.
“Pho is not for Japanese.”
“Pho is popular in the Japanese diet.”
“It would be very difficult to start as a business.”
There were many reasons for the lack of restaurants serving authentic pho.
But having grown up in Vietnam and traveled the world, we firmly believed that “the authentic pho of long-established Vietnamese traditions is a dish that transcends national borders“.
“Then we’ll make it.”
Making Pho is not that simple.
There were many challenges, such as where to procure raw materials, which are rarely distributed in Japan, and how much time and labor cost would be required to recreate the traditional recipe.
Besides, the most important ingredient of Pho is “fresh pho noodles“. In Vietnam, it is easy to find companies that produce raw pho noodles because of the custom of eating pho on a daily basis. However, there are no companies that produce raw pho noodles in Japan. The chicken-and-egg logic was “There are no companies that produce raw pho noodles, so raw pho noodles are not used. There is no demand for raw pho noodles, so even if someone produced, they would not be able to sell.”
In 2021, we happened to meet a person who was willing to produce fresh pho noodles. At that time, the timing was just right, as we had also perfected a pho soup that could be reproduced in Japan. Although we were in the midst of the Corona pandemic, we were undaunted and opened “Betoya” in Tsukiji, Tokyo.
“Betoya – Viet Restaurant” is a Vietnamese restaurant established in Japan.We strive to reproduce authentic local flavors and deliver them to our customers with our all attention.
