The Hanoi Bike Shop

Down a lane off Byres Road, the first Vietnamese restaurant in town offers taste-crammed food with a creative and individual twist.

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The popularity of the Hanoi Bike Shop, down one of the numerous cobbled lanes of Byres Road, ensures that it is often lively and bustling, with music adding to the sense of clamour and urgency – and while the serving staff can appear overworked and distracted in such an environment, the service is always polite. The menu offers up a taste of Vietnamese food with sections on street food and ‘pot and grill’ – the vit lau, a duck leg and banana hot pot, has layers of nuanced tastes, with a sweet yet spicy edge. A section lets you build your own pho, adding your personal pick of a choice of ingredients to the noodle based broth, a staple in Vietnam. The range of generously portioned main courses on offer, from chilli-glazed sesame rice cakes through a variety of dishes using the restaurant’s own homemade tofu, make the Bike Shop’s menu an adventure into a foreign land. It’s an excursion helped along by the hustle and bustle that lends the place an informal charm, enhanced by the street food ethos and bicycle-heavy interior design.