The Lunch Lady of Saigon

At 93 Ossington Avenue, in the old Boehmer room, The Lunch Lady of Saigon opened June 26, 2025. The kitchen cooks from recipes by Nguyen Thi Thanh, whose Saigon sidewalk stall changed noodle soups by the day. Anthony Bourdain filmed her on No Reservations and called her the Lunch Lady; the name stuck. Partner Michael Tran and chef Benedict Lim opened the Vancouver Commercial Drive room with her in 2020, and Michelin has kept a Bib on that shop since the city’s first guide. Toronto’s room is about twice that size. Thanh died of cardiac arrest at Pearson on May 19, 2025, on her way into town for the opening. The team delayed the launch, then opened the Ossington shop in her name.

Midday service still posts her soup rotation when lunch is on: bún riêu on Wednesday, phở gà on Thursday, bún bò on Friday, with weekend crab and duck bowls on the board. Dinner turns to share plates. The Infatuation sends people for bò tái chanh and the wagyu phở with oxtail and an upright marrow bone. Garlic noodles with a poached egg, ribeye lúc lắc, and Vietnamese coffee tiramisu fill out the table. Michelin named the Toronto room a Bib Gourmand in the 2026 selection. Book on OpenTable; seating limits are short. A few doors north, Pho Tien Thanh is still the classic family pho house.

Dinner tables talk about the wagyu pho, bò tái chanh, and desserts more than a plain broth bowl. Garlic noodles split the room: some call them the point of the night, others find them too briny or sweet. Service usually starts warm; on peak nights waits can run past the reservation time. Prices sit well above strip-mall pho. The rotating soup board belongs to lunch; dinner is where the share plates land.