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Sen Saigon: The Story Behind NYC's Only Fully Vegan Vietnamese Restaurant

On a stop during the Vegans Explore New York City tour, Sean A. Russell sat down with An, co-founder of Sen Saigon, the only fully vegan Vietnamese restaurant in New York City.

Solving her own problem

An, who was born and raised in Vietnam and has lived in New York City for twelve years, went vegan and could not find vegan Vietnamese food anywhere in the city, despite New York being one of the most vegan friendly cities in the country. She and her husband opened Sen Saigon on Thanksgiving 2023 to solve that gap, officially opening the restaurant in March after a few months of renovation.

Traditional Vietnamese cooking leans heavily on fish sauce, and An says making a dish vegan often means building an entirely separate broth and process rather than simply adjusting a recipe. Sen Saigon builds every dish from scratch to be fully plant based, with no afterthought substitutions.

Community from every direction

An credits three overlapping communities for Sen Saigon's early success: the Vietnamese restaurant community that showed her the ropes before she opened, the vegan and vegetarian community that showed up without knowing what to expect, and the Chinatown and Lower East Side business community that referred customers and catering work from day one.

• Sen Saigon's most popular items are the pork belly banh mi and pork belly vermicelli, both plant based renditions that started as seasonal specials.
• The restaurant is located at 150 East Broadway in the Lower East Side, and posts daily behind the scenes content at samethag.nyc on Instagram.
• An estimates roughly 90 percent of new customers find Sen Saigon through Instagram or TikTok, largely from the heart centered, day in the life style videos she posts and personally responds to.

Sen Saigon is featured in the Vegans Explore New York City directory at vegansexplore.com.