Olivia

The Verdict

Olivia earns a return visit. The European Contemporary format, a 2025 Michelin Plate recognition, a wine list running 260 selections deep make it one of the more complete dining propositions in Ho Chi Minh City's ₫₫₫ tier. If you came once and left satisfied, the wine program alone justifies coming back; the Italian and French selections are strong, California is represented, the list spans accessible bottles through serious $100+ options. For explorers who treat the wine list as part of the meal, this is a room worth revisiting.

Portrait

Return visitors to Olivia tend to notice what hasn't changed: the seriousness of the wine program and the consistency of the kitchen under chef Ty Leon. That consistency is the point. European Contemporary in Ho Chi Minh City can mean almost anything; fusion filler or genuinely disciplined cooking, Olivia has positioned itself firmly in the latter camp, earning a Michelin Plate in 2025 to back it up. A Michelin Plate is not a star, but it is a formal signal that inspectors found the cooking worthy of attention. In a city where fine-dining credentials can feel thin, that credential carries weight.

The ownership structure at Olivia, Austin Carson and Heather Morrison on the business side, Ty Leon in the kitchen, reflects a deliberate model where the wine and culinary programs are developed in tandem rather than as afterthoughts to each other. Wine Director Scott Thomas and Sommelier Shane Stuart and Ryan Graber manage a list of 1,330 inventory items across 260 selections. That is a serious cellar by any city's standards, not just by Ho Chi Minh City's. At $$ wine pricing, the list offers range: accessible bottles well under $50 sit alongside $100+ options for those who want to spend into the serious tier. For an explorer who views the wine program as equally important to the food, few rooms in the city match this depth.

The cuisine is Italian-leaning European Contemporary, with dinner as the service. A two-course meal falls in the $40–$65 range (₫₫ cuisine pricing), which puts Olivia in a reasonable position relative to what the kitchen and cellar are delivering. You are not paying flagship-restaurant prices for the food itself, the wine is where the spend can escalate, deliberately so. That structure suits a certain kind of diner: someone who wants a serious table without committing to an eight-course tasting format, who plans to let the sommelier guide them through a bottle or two.

As a neighborhood anchor in Ho Chi Minh City, Olivia fills a gap. The city's dining scene skews either toward Vietnamese-rooted concepts, where it excels, or toward high-concept international formats that can feel disconnected from the local context. Olivia's Italian-led European kitchen, combined with a wine program built for genuine exploration, offers something the neighborhood does not have in surplus: a room where the food and wine are equally considered, priced without pretension on the food side, staffed by a team that knows the list cold.

For the food and wine traveler moving through Vietnam, Olivia is a useful calibration point. If you have been to La Maison 1888 in Da Nang or Hibana by Koki in Hanoi, you will find Olivia occupies a different register, more approachable in format, more focused on the table experience over theatrical presentation, but no less deliberate in execution. It compares well against European-leaning contemporaries further afield, including Zén in Singapore and Schwarzer Adler in Hall in Tirol, though those operate at higher price points and with different culinary ambitions. Within Ho Chi Minh City, it shares the ₫₫₫ tier with options like Mía Dining and Okra FoodBar, but the wine cellar is the differentiator that pulls it ahead for somm-led evenings.

The broader Ho Chi Minh City dining scene rewards exploration. If you are building an itinerary around Olivia, Fashionista Café, Lửa, and Miên Saigon round out different parts of the city's dining range. For a full picture of what the city offers, see our full Ho Chi Minh City restaurants guide, and consider pairing your visit with resources from our bars guide and our hotels guide for a more complete trip. Wine travelers specifically may want to check our Ho Chi Minh City wineries guide and experiences guide for context on what else the city supports at this level.

Elsewhere in Vietnam, the European fine-dining format shows up in different forms: Saffron in Hue City and Cargo Club Café & Restaurant in Hoi An serve travelers moving through central Vietnam, while regional Vietnamese cooking at its most focused appears at spots like Mi Quang Ba Vi in Thanh Khe and Bau Troi Do in Son Tra. Olivia's value is precisely that it does not try to be any of those things, it is the European anchor in a city that needed one.

At a Glance