For years, the standard line on Central Vietnam was that you came for the beach, the Ancient Town, and the banh mi, in that order. But over the past two years, something quieter and more interesting has been happening between Danang and Hoi An: a generation of chefs, hoteliers, and architects has decided that this stretch of coastline deserves the same ambition we usually reserve for Saigon and Hanoi.
So when people ask me how I would do the Central Coast now, my answer has changed. Four nights. Two hotels. Three dinners worth planning a trip around. And one evening on the river that I think will become the signature experience of the region.
Night One: Land In Danang, Eat Immediately
The beauty of Danang is that you can be off the plane and at a dinner table within the hour, and the table is now the point. The city’s dining scene has quietly become one of the country’s most compelling, driven by individuals building something personal here rather than big hospitality groups.
My first stop is Westwood. Executive chef Curtis Demyon, who opened the restaurant with co-founder Vivian Tran in 2025, cooks almost everything over a wood fire, and the menu reads like a love letter to Central Vietnam written in a West Coast accent. Wood-fired focaccia arrives with bone marrow butter. There is a pho beef tartare that should not work and absolutely does. The dry-aged ribeye, finished over the fire with Vietnamese accents, is the kind of dish that makes you recalculate what this city is capable of. Wow is the right word.
Their team is globally trained with chef Curtis plying his trade in Saigon previously, helming the award-winning Elgin restaurant which was selected by Michelin Guide. He brings his know-how to Danang now.
My latest visit happened to land during a special residency by Hong Kong based chef John Nguyen, a Black Sheep Restaurants alum like Curtis himself, who spent two weeks in the kitchen working the fire alongside him on a fresh menu. I absolutely loved it, the pot pie and the ceviche above all, and I am openly lobbying for both to stay on the menu for future visits.
I hope John comes back soon.
If I have more than one Danang evening, and on this itinerary I do, the second belongs to Le Comptoir. Chef Olivier Corti has built a French fine dining room that has earned a Michelin Selection nod three years running, but the reason I keep coming back is the pairing of his kitchen with Myriam, the sommelier. The restaurant is built around interaction with the team, which keeps the whole evening conversational though only just enough to have privacy, and Myriam’s wine program turns dinner into something closer to a guided tour. Tell her what you like, then let her overrule you. She will be right.
My latest visit to Le Comptoir was a few years after the first. Since then, they’ve expanded the restaurant to also include private dining which is a perfect setting for medium sized groups.
To me, Le Comptoir is the perfect example of east meets west, and it is possibly my vote for the best restaurant in Vietnam. What makes that claim easier to defend is the bill. For the value and service it delivers, it is not pricey at all: a set menu comes in around 2 million VND ++, less than half the price of similar Michelin star venues in Vietnam, before alcohol of course.
And for the night when you want the volume turned down, there is Gu Wine Bistro, a French bistro and wine bar that feels like it was airlifted in from a Lyon side street and then relaxed by the sea air. Nice is underselling it. A bottle, a few plates, no agenda: this is where a weekend starts to feel like one.
Nights One And Two: Namia, And An Evening On The Thu Bon
After dinner, I head south. The drive from Danang to Hoi An takes about forty minutes, which is short enough that the two cities function as one destination and long enough that arriving feels like a change of state.
Here I should declare a bias: I prefer to stay in Hoi An. Danang is the better base for those who prefer the city, its energy, its skyline, its beach clubs and rooftop bars. But my ideal version of this weekend sleeps by the river and lets Danang handle the dinners.
If you do go the city route, my pick is Fusion Resort & Villas Da Nang, the larger-scale counterweight to Hoi An’s cosiness: 85 villas, a 157-room tower, and the flagship Maia Spa, where general manager Mario Mendis has pushed wellness further than most, down to a red light therapy room, an innovation you do not yet expect on this coast. Danang for scale, Hoi An for something cosier. That is the shape of the trip.
My first two nights are at Namia River Retreat, on the banks of the Thu Bon River. Namia opened in late 2024 as Hoi An’s first wellness-inclusive resort, and it has since joined Small Luxury Hotels of the World, but the labels undersell what makes it work. The property understands that Hoi An’s real luxury is not thread count. It is the river: the fishermen at dawn, the light in the late afternoon, the sense that the town’s entire history flowed past this exact spot.
Which brings me to the one activity on this itinerary that sets a new bar for river activities in Hoi An: The Merchant, Namia’s new evening river cruise. Launched this year, it is a two-and-a-half-hour journey downriver toward the Ancient Town, timed to the sunset. You start with sundowners and canapes on the open upper deck, then move to a five-course dinner inspired by the Spice Route that once made Hoi An one of Asia’s great trading ports. Central coast seafood, herbs from organic farms, storytelling woven through the service. It could easily tip into theme park territory. It never does. Watching the lantern glow of the Ancient Town rise off the water while eating food that traces the trade routes that built it is the rare experience that makes the history legible. This is the evening I would build the whole trip around.
Nights Three And Four: NHAAN, The New Arrival
For the second half of the stay, I switch to NHAAN Resort & Spa, the property everyone in Vietnamese hospitality has been watching this year. Opened in August in Cam Thanh village, along the Co Co River between the Ancient Town and Cua Dai Beach, it is the first Tapestry Collection by Hilton in Vietnam.
Two things set it apart. The first is the architecture. NHAAN was designed by Vo Trong Nghia, the Vietnamese architect who has done more than anyone to define a national language of green building, and his biophilic approach runs through all 174 rooms: local stone, timber, organic textures, and craft details that nod to the 500-year woodworking legacy of nearby Kim Bong Carpentry Village. The name itself combines nha, home, and an, peace, and the property takes the promise seriously.
The second is rhythm. Where Namia is about the river, NHAAN is about slowing your pulse: a rooftop spa, an infinity pool, a yoga deck, lantern-making and pottery workshops, and bicycles for disappearing into the rice paddies of Cam Thanh. After two nights of ambitious dinners and a river cruise, this is precisely the gear change the back half of a long weekend needs.
Why This Itinerary, And Why Now?
A split stay across two hotels for four nights sounds indulgent until you realize what it actually gives you: two entirely different readings of the same place. Namia gives you Hoi An as a river town, alive with commerce and history. NHAAN gives you Hoi An as a sanctuary, designed by one of our best architects for the way people actually want to rest now. Danang, thirty minutes up the coast, supplies the dinners that neither city could have offered five years ago.
That is the real story here. The Central Coast is no longer a place where great hospitality occasionally happens. It is a place where chefs like Curtis Demyon and Olivier Corti choose to plant flags, where a homegrown resort launches a river cruise polished enough to anchor a trip, and where a global brand makes its Vietnam debut with a local architect’s vision rather than a template. Four nights is enough to see all of it. Barely.
Come hungry, book the cruise, and let Myriam pick the wine.