Vietnamese rice can become something world-class
- Open daily, 4pm to midnight
- 317 Nguyễn Duy Hiệu, Hội An
- Walk-ins welcome after four
A bar built on one belief
Vietnam has made rice spirits for generations, in kitchens and back rooms, rarely given the stage that saké gets in Japan. Hèm was built around a simple belief: Vietnamese rice can become something world-class, if someone puts it behind a proper bar and treats it that way.
Everything follows from that. Vietnamese-made saké and rice spirits sit at the centre of the list, not the side of it, and every cocktail is built to let them lead.
From a house to a bar
The house
A heritage house on Nguyễn Duy Hiệu is found still carrying its original layers of paint, and kept that way instead of restored.
The idea
By day the courtyard becomes Lalita's Mexican Brunch, by Mezcal Coctelería; the idea for a night life in the same rooms takes shape.
Today
From four in the afternoon, candles replace the daylight and Hèm opens: Vietnam's first sake cocktail bar.
Local produce, a few Japanese bottles
The bar draws on Vietnam's culinary traditions and whatever the local markets are carrying that week: ginger, tea leaves, bitter melon, lotus seed, rice itself. A handful of select Japanese ingredients round out the list where they earn their place, never as decoration.
Find us
Where and when
317 Nguyễn Duy Hiệu, Hội An, Đà Nẵng, Việt Nam
Same heritage complex as Lalita's Mexican Brunch, which runs the daytime.
