Food & identity

A 376-seat restaurant in the mountains — ingredients from our garden, flavours of the village.

Seven-flavour roast duck — Cao Bằng’s signature dish

The signature

Seven-flavour duck and the “must try once” list

A duck of about two kilos is blanched to tighten the skin, then stuffed with seven mountain spices — ginger, garlic, shallot, mắc mật berries and forest leaves whose exact blend is a Tày family secret. The skin is brushed with honey and vinegar, then roasted over dry hardwood coals: amber-glazed skin, deeply sweet meat.

Alongside it: khâu nhục pork braised for eight hours, firm free-range hill chicken, and crispy stream fish with chẩm chéo dip — every dish carries a village story.

Purple sticky rice ringed with black canarium on banana leaf

Identity

Five-colour rice, black canarium — the taste of Cao Bằng

The five colours of the sticky rice carry a whole philosophy: red gấc for aspiration, purple magenta leaves for fertile land, yellow turmeric for plenty, green from young leaves for the forest, and plain white for faithfulness — five colours for the five elements, all dyed with garden plants, never with colouring.

Around the tray sits black canarium — the fruit “black as coal, buttery as peanuts” that only this land grows so well. Trays are served family-style on brocade cloth; vegetarian and children’s options just need a word in advance.

The menu in pictures