My assessment is that Ho Chi Minh City is full of Italian restaurants, but Italian food is very scarce. In my February 2019 trip I noticed that places serving questionable pasta mushroomed around the city. A new trend maybe? What is certain is that authentic Italian food is still hard to come by. On the luxury side I keep recommending R&J, but you cannot splurge every day. Hence, finding a mid-range restaurant serving authentic Italian food warrants a review.
The visit
The restaurant is called La Forchetta and is located in Phu My Hung, in the Southern part of Saigon. It is run by an experienced Italian chef and his son. It could be best described as a one-man show.
The restaurant occupies part of the ground floor of a Phy My Hung hotel. Most of the tables are on an open veranda and an air-conditioned dining room is also available. I personally prefer dining in the veranda, even if sometimes mosquitoes can be a bit annoying.
For a small restaurant, the menu is impressively extensive. All Italian classics are there and much more: a long list of pastas, pizzas, meat and seafood mains.
A bread basket is always included in the price.
In one visit I had squid ink raviolis filled with sea bass and coming with a dressing of crab meat. They were handmade by the chef. It was a delicious pasta dish, difficult to find in Italian restaurants abroad.
Then I had an Italian cutlet. While the original Italian cutlet is made with veal as this kind of meat is difficult to come by in Vietnam, this was a generous portion of chicken cutlet.
On a second visit I had a cold meat platter. Very large, it had two types of salamis, hams, bacon, baloney.
Finally I had a dish of spaghetti with sausage, sprouts (usually is nuts, but they were finished on that day, during lunar new year), and cheese.
All the dishes were absolutely authentic and very tasty.
The check
My first meal cost me 370,000 VND (16 USD). The second one cost a little bit more (around 20 USD because of the cold meat platter, check not pictured). I see these prices as very reasonable considering the generous portions and the quality of the offering.
If you are after authentic homemade Italian food in Ho Chi Minh City, La Forchetta is worth a detour.
Where in Ho Chi Minh City:
24(R3-37) Cao Trieu Phat, Hung Gia 3, Tan Phong Ward, Dist.7
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/La-Forchetta-Ristorante-Italiano-1607187852881339/