Viet Grill owner to open second Cay Tre site in London

Vietnamese restaurateur Hieu Trung Bui, owner of Viet Grill in London's Shoreditch, is launching a new restaurant this month, with the opening of a second Cay Tre site in Soho.

The new restaurant, which will open next week, will be located on Dean Street and serve authentic Vietnamese food. It will be the second Cay Tre restaurant in London after the original on Old Street.

The 100-cover Cay Tre Soho restaurant has been designed by David Archer, whose previous projects have included Alan Yau's Aaya and Busaba Eathai. The design is being described as fresh and delicate with white interiors and bright floral colours.

The menu at Cay Tre Soho will offer regional Vietnamese cuisine with a focus on fresh ingredients and authentic flavours. Dishes will include the cha gio re Lang Son crispy roast pork from the far north of Vietnam, which involves stuffing pork belly with a local curry leaf before dousing it in a mixture of honey, lemon and vinegar.

Bui told Caterersearch he was excited to open a restaurant in Soho, which is as lively and diverse as Shoreditch.

"People are willing to try different things and search out the less obvious. I was always surprised that Soho was so poorly represented in terms of Vietnamese restaurants; the few there are tend to get lost in and around Chinatown," he said.

"My mission is to modernise the reputation of Vietnamese food, to encourage people to take a fresh look, and to be inspired as much by the food as by the environment they eat it in."

Bui moved from Saigon to London 10 years ago and worked in a number of Vietnamese restaurants on Kingsland Road but, frustrated with the lack of good quality, authentic Vietnamese food, opened his own restaurant, Cay Tre Old Street, where he also runs the Kêu Banh Mi Deli.

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By Kerstin Kühn

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