Sochi Saigonese Kitchen

I was looking for a casual dinner place for my birthday and this one definitely blow my mind. I can’t have gluten, so I usually I give a call prior to going just to make sure that there is decent amount of option, and I was already pleasantly surprised over the phone. In person that just continued as the lady that is also the owner came to my table to help me out with food and explain everything. I can’t say enough how welcoming and nice she was. Everything we ordered got to our table quickly, tasted delicious and was also very presentable. Food was fresh and flavorful. Pho was outstanding ☺️ I love the vibe of the place, it’s bright, clean and spacious. I can’t wait to go back.

Definitely not your typical Viet restaurant but this place is amazing nevertheless. I loved the duck salad + highly recommend it, especially in the summer heat! The crab fried rice was also really good, with generous portions of crab inside and great flavor.

This place is a hidden gem if you are looking for Vietnamese cuisine and is possibly amongst the best in Chicago! It was surprisingly empty for a Saturday lunch but the service, quality of food, cleanliness was all top notch. The pork dish and chicken curry we ordered were both delicious. The service requires a special mention , one of my best experiences in the US! If there is something to improve, restaurant can do a bit more to give it a more cozy Vietnam ‘feel’ but everything is still very good.

So this is my third time here, and I want to leave 5 starts every time. One of my fav spots in Chicago. The spring rolls were sold out today, so we decided to try something new. Always happy to come back ! I Love this place. I really like Pho, and this is my go to place. I’m personally not a fan of sketchy Vietnamese spots, I’d rather come to Sochi and enjoy an excellent and authentic Vietnamese dinner! I just love it. It’s kind of noisy, but I guess that’s just the acoustic of the place. Quick and friendly staff, the place has great ambience, and the open kitchen is SPOTLESS. We paid with Toast, scanning a QR from our phone and directly paid with Apple Pay. I always have the best experience here, make sure you have a reservation because it’s always packed!

Loved our first visit to Sochi. Been wanting to come here for a while and finally snagged a reservation and wasn't disappointed at all. The cocktails were really refreshing and a nice twist on a usual menu. The food was incredible and there was a wide variety of options with some good veggie items as well. Service was top notch and the ambiance was really inviting with a lot of greenery and plants around the area. Definitely coming back here again!

Such a pleasant place to enjoy upscale Vietnamese food. We absolutely love all the dishes we had last night. Great service also. For sure this is our new favorite place to go.

DELICIOUS!! This was one of the best meals I’ve had in Chicago. For the two of us, we shared 3 dishes (1 starter, 1 salad, and 1 main dishes) which was the perfect amount. We started with the Original Egg Roll which was perfectly crispy on the outside but tender and moist on the inside. The flavor was unlike any egg roll I’ve ever had. For our salad, we got the Ben Thành Market Salad which was my favorite dish. The flavor was so unique and the pork was cooked perfectly. For our main, we got the Saigon Pho which was salty and umami and the perfect thing for a cold night. The inside of the restaurant is decorated nicely and the staff were friendly and helpful. All and all, I would highly recommend Sochi and we will definitely be back soon!

The cocktails we're all light and refreshing, not to strong. The service was wonderful, and prompt. The spring rolls were light, and delicious. The shaking beef was cooked just right with the rice. The sun rice was cooked perfectly too. I wish we had more people to try and share all the food 😋

Delicious! Thank goodness they had bar seating. We had the chicken curry and the shaking beef alongside a Vietnamese coffee and Green River cocktail. Cute ambiance and the food is delicious.

Amazing and authentic food with reasonable prices and a vibey, aesthetic atmosphere! I went for a date night and it was perfect. We ordered the spring rolls, claypot, crab fried rice and tiramisu. Would recommend all of them!

From start to finish this culinary experience is exceptional. Beyond delicious and the proportions were sizable and the leftovers tasted superb. Highly, highly recommend and I definitely will return.

Very very good. We got the egg rolls, which were amazing. I got the curry, and my husband got the sun’s rice, as seen in the picture. Would recommend, staff was very nice.

Love the open kitchen and the ambiance. I ordered the Saigon pho, and it may be my fav bowl of pho in the city right now. The broth is clear and light yet still rich in flavor. The noodles are cooked properly and don't clumsily stick together. The brisket stays tender and flavorful unlike many other spots that serve chewy beef in their pho. Service is attentive. Cannot recommend this place enough, and I will definitely be back to try more of their menu!

This newly opened restaurant has great service! Spring roll, sun rice and pork ribs were amazing! Loved their Vietnamese coffee too

Food was incredible! My fiance and I had dinner here just because we were in the area and we're so happy to have stumbled across it. Sochi may be one of the best Vietnamese restaurants in the city!

We stopped in for dinner last night and didn’t have a reservation but we’re able to get spots at the bar which over look kitchen. Our server was very friendly and attentive throughout the meal. The food was really top notch. We had the spring rolls, Saigon Pho, and Suns Rice. Definitely recommend!

Had a fun time here. Very good cocktails, the spicy margarita was great to start. Shaking beef with bone marrow was top, solid pho with brisket, crab rice was super nice. Order lots of dishes and share with the table.

I was for the first time at Sochi tonight. What a lovely place filled with lovely people. Beautiful and clean restaurant, the food and the drinks were delicious and exceeded my expectations, but the best part was Jill, an amazing person and a professional server. She presented me to the owner, a dedicated woman, and made the night even better. The dessert was great. I cannot wait to come back. Thank you!

First time at Sochi after it’s been open for 3 years. Service and the food were great. The waitress guided us just right on the appetizers. They have a $6 surcharge which some filks might find annoying.

I went here for dinner and was already planning what I would order the next time I came back! Really great atmosphere. Great food for an approachable price.

Contemporary and understated yet tastefully decorated, Sochi brings a delicate touch of authentic seasonings to its Vietnamese cuisine. An instant favorite and the owners are terrific hosts.

Please read my experience below. As a Vietnamese person, I'd like to enjoy VietNamese authentic food and it is not easy to find a restaurant like this. Even I have tried a lot of restaurants at Argyle, Chinatown... After over 2years, finally i can find a restaurant, where makes me feel like i actually back to VietNam in a moment. This first impression is the dishes and bowls, all of them are from the most famous ceramic village in VN - BatTrang ceramic and pottery. Its such a surprising for me. I have ordered pho, shortrib claypot and a duck salad. The short rib claypot is definitely amazing. The taste, the color and the smelling, everything is exactly like what i used to have when i was in VN. If you have ever tried it in VN and love it( we call it "bò kho"), you should try it again now at Chicago. The pho is good for me. The soup is really authentic ( haha i dont know how to explain about this). I can rate 8/10 for the pho. As a difficult person, this is a pretty high score for me. Just only 1 small thing the bowl is smaller than another Vietnamese restaurants. But it also depends on how you are felling about the food. We definitely gonna comeback next time.

This is one of those reviews that I really don't feel like posting, because this place is so good that I don't want to spread the word any more than it's already been spread by others. The food is awesome, the cocktails are really special and the service is top-notch. But you'll want to make a reservation for a table along the east wall – much better ambiance there.

Love this place! My wife and I started trying more and more Vietnamese restaurants and this rivals Le Colonial! We have been there at least 4 times over the last 6 months, the most recent of which was 2/24/24. We were early for our reservation but Sherry greeted us and worked some magic and was able to seat us right away! From there, we had great service from Sydney who was so attentive to what we needed, and all of the other staff that work there too would also stop by to drop off/remove dishes from our table. It was clearly a collaborative effort for everyone to provide us great service!! Now the food!! Just incredible, from the spring rolls and that amazing peanut sauce, to the chicken wings and the ribs-all as appetizers! All came with great flavors served piping hot! Then the chicken curry with the juiciest chicken I have ever tasted, and that slamming fried rice (always forget the complete name) that comes with a lot of crab meat! Everything was amazing and it has been that way each time we come! Writing this review around dinner time is making me want to order something to pick up from there!

Amazing food and the best Pho I've had and amazing betel beef- 5 stars. You won't find better in Lakeview/ Lincoln Park. Awful tap water / if they used filtered water for cooking and for "tap" it would elevate the experience imore but c'est la vie, I order bottled.

I’ve walked by this place a million times but finally got a reservation and can see this becoming a staple in our neighborhood rotation. Our server had great suggestions but wasn’t pushy, drinks were great, and all the food we had was incredible! Don’t sleep on the sun rice, it was perfect in its simplicity. Great date night or group dinner to share the whole menu.

Excellent food! My friends and I ordered several dishes and shared the plates. Everything we had was delicious! Highly recommend.

Food was really good one of the better takes on elevated Vietnamese cuisine without screwing up what makes Vietnamese food great. The pho had a very beefy flavor letting the marrow broth shine through more than other pho where the spices rock sugar etc are more pronounced. Ironically more similar to a northern Hanoi style pho when the restaurant is named after Saigon. The clay pot stew tasted like Bo Kho and was great the bread wasn’t like a traditional Vietnamese baguette and had a sweet almost milk bread like flavor. The short rib was cooked perfectly as well

Loved Sochi and would recommend! The food was unique, creative and phenomenal. Incredibly tasty, very flavorful. Very creative and unique taste on Vietnamese dishes. Overall service and ambience were fantastic too! Our waitress was spot on with her suggestions and recommend recommendations, both meals were 10 out of 10. Great for a date night, friends gathering, family or just about any occasion. Only thing that held back a full five star review was the silly $6 added fee... for nothing. Just because. Never seen this at a restaurant before. In their defense, it can be removed upon request, however the whole thing made us feel uncomfortable. Enough with the layers of added fees post-listed prices in this country. Just adjust the menu prices accordingly, it's a business not a charity. It isn't cheap but, Sochi is AMAZING and WORTH IT. You will love it, I definitely recommend it.

I really like this take on Vietnamese cuisine. It’s inspired by street food but presented in a more modern and refined way. That said, it’s still street food at its core—so paying $18 for egg rolls feels a bit excessive. The standout here, as our waiter pointed out, is the peanut sauce, which comes with several dishes. It’s genuinely unique and absolutely delicious. The overall flavor profile isn’t what I’d call authentically Vietnamese—it’s clearly adjusted to suit a Midwestern palate, with milder and more subdued flavors across the board. What’s especially frustrating is that after charging $18 for egg rolls, they also tack on an extra $2 for chili sauce—a basic condiment that really should be complimentary. It makes the whole experience feel like a nickel-and-dime operation. And despite the high prices, they serve takeout in those flimsy, old-school Chinese takeout containers, which just reinforces the sense that they’re cutting corners wherever they can. The ambiance is fantastic, though I’m not a fan of the $6 surcharge added to the bill, especially since it goes to the restaurant and not the servers.

Enjoyed my experience at Sochi! Pictured is the market salad (vermicelli bowl) and the shaking beef. We also ordered the chicken wings and eggs roll which I forgot to take pictures of. The food here is pretty solid and definitely emulates Vietnamese cuisine. It isn’t your most authentic flavors, I’d say it’s definitely more “modernized” and the prices show that. Nevertheless, tasty! I wish the vermicelli bowl came with more sauce and veggies. The steak melted in my mouth - so good! But was the most bland take on shaking beef I’ve ever had. Felt like I was just eating grilled steak with fried rice, didn’t taste any Asian spices at all and no sauce on it. The egg rolls were amazing, didn’t care for the wings that much - too sweet for my taste. I definitely want to come back when it’s cooler and try the pho and banh mi!

The dining experience was generally decent. The restaurant has a modern interior, and the service was friendly. While the food quality was good, it leaned towards the pricier side - the seared duck salad was refreshing and well-seasoned; the chili salt chicken was enjoyable with the accompanying lime chili dipping sauce. However, the Sun’s Rice felt a bit lacking in flavor. Overall, the meal was enjoyable, but given the price and reputation, I expected a bit more.

Food was absolutely amazing very good flavors and everything else.. Just the service need to improve a little bit, we feel rush to eat order clean up pick up the plate ect no dessert here the check when we may want another drink or just chill..

The food was fantastic. I love Vietnamese food and flavors, and each dish was unique yet classic. The lemongrass short ribs, shrimp, and eggplant were all exquisite. Classic flavors, creative & quality dishes. The overall experience… We had a reservation and showed up early… like 7-8 minutes. We were seated quickly and then after we were served water the host told us that the next reservation was at 7:15. We were being told to hurry up from the jump and weren’t even late so as to prompt that type of comment. I know the restaurant industry is tough but telling guests they are timed is whack, inhospitable, and antithetical to a proper experience. There was also a $6 fee that was explained on the menu with respect to rising costs and it said we could ask for it to be removed. Again, ugh. Just charge me what it needs to be for you to make money on the meal instead of this punitive and unwelcoming addition of charges, which for a $150 meal feels like nickel and diming. Our server was kind & smiley but spread thin.

Food was excellent. Wine very good. Service was kind of mid. Cold inside. While we loved the food probably not a return.

Great atmosphere, service, and food. The Lemongrass Pork Sparerib appetizer was a stand-out! I took off a star because they add an optional surcharge you need to request to have removed. Wish management would quit playing these games, as it makes me less likely to want to return to an otherwise great place.

Let me preface this by saying how excited I was for a new Bib Gourmand-rated Vietnamese restaurant. For people questioning the price point at this restaurant for their “elevated” take on Viet. cuisine, I’ve always felt beef-based Pho was usually under-priced across the board. For instance, most Pho is usually cheaper than Japanese pork-based Ramen. Beef costs more than pork and chicken; as such, beef Pho is typically under-priced within this context and should be priced higher than (objectively & putting aside quality of service) your average bowl of pork or chicken-based Japanese ramen in the US. I highly welcomed a $22 bowl of beef-based Pho. I strategically went into this food journey to get a true taste of their execution on a few staples of Viet. cuisine: Viet. Iced Coffee (ca phe sua da), Egg Rolls (cha gio), Duck Salad (goi vit), and Pho. I have purposely avoided using diacritics aka accent marks for the purpose of simplicity. Unfortunately, the Viet. iced coffee ($12) is/was the worst I’ve ever had regardless of price. Had this coffee been priced at even $6 or less, I’d still say without trepidation it was the worst I’ve ever had. The balance was disproportionate to begin with; I was given a glass half-full of ice. Once the filter drip coffee was complete and had I poured it over the ice, I would have had lukewarm iced coffee with mostly melted ice. I had to ask for more ice, which I didn’t mind. Viet iced coffee should be a palette journey of sensation: strong bold flavor of espresso and it’s mild bitterness in contrast to the sweetness of the condensed milk that you slowly sip. Their unrecognizable attempt of the iconic Viet. iced coffee by way of French influence was flavorless, flat, & dull. Their duck salad was delicious and packed with flavor, dimension, & texture. Their seasoned dipping fish sauce with plentiful ginger (nuoc mam cham) was the absolute highlight of the dish! Chef’s kiss. Their bowl of beef Pho was cooked to near perfection. I thought the execution of the broth was well-done and delicately well-balanced. Props on the execution of the tender beef and brisket. However, the garnish side dish of basil, bean sprouts, and small wedge of lemon was laughable to say the least. I can appreciate that the bean sprouts’ stems were thoroughly cleaned & trimmed, but never in all my years have I ever been provoked to count the number of bean sprout stems given to me on a single plate with any bowl of Pho I have consistently consumed in my life in Vietnam, LA, OC, and Chicago (& more). Regardless of intended portion control or to eliminate waste on behalf of the patron eating as dictated by head chef and staff, the presentation and proportion was remarkably off by measure of aesthetic, price point, and overall textural balance with their well-cooked Pho. I was left wondering: “purposely stingy or wrongfully pre-mediated as balanced?” Egg rolls using banh trang were fine and mediocre at best, although their pickled daikon and carrots (Do Chua) completely lacked a standard & traditional pungently sweet-“vinegary” flavor. This under sight and poor execution of a simple garnish affected the whole dish, especially if their intention was to serve egg rolls with butter lettuce in totality for the patron to make a lettuce wrap to be dipped into the seasoned fish sauce. I can confidently say that I’ve had the most uninspiring pickled daikon and carrot at Sochi. The details of these staple items matter if you’re marketing yourselves and attempting to make elevated, quality authentic Vietnamese cuisine in a major city & food capital at this price point ($16). -Viet Iced Coffee (0/5) -Duck Salad (5/5) -Bowl of Beef Pho (4.5/5) -Side garnish dish for Pho (0/5) **never have I ever been provoked to consciously critique this -Egg Rolls (3/5) -Pickled daikon/carrots (0/5) ** -Quality of Wait Service (4/5) Overall (3/5)—imbalanced & inconsistent execution of flavor/portions at this price point and of the Viet. language usage on their menu. *see my coffee & egg rolls photos to compare with past yelp ones*

Ordered delivery and the soup carrying container was paper. Not the smartest decision, it leaked everywhere after 5 min of pickup luckily we live close and saved half. Portions were half the normal size of a Viet restaurant. Prices were double. Food tasted average. Not a bad date night if you want to impress and are ok ordering pizza later that night. You’ll spend 100 and be hungry after.

We made a reservation which required a non-refundable deposit, and noted that this was for a special occasion. We arrived at 5pm, and were the only party in the entire restaurant. The first words out of the host's mouth when we were sat were, "you only have 90 minutes" -- this table has another reservation. I looked at the menu, and there was a $6 "Restaurant Surcharge" on all bills. So, I basically had the choice of walking out, and paying the cancellation fee, or staying for a rushed dining experience, with a fee that wasn't disclosed prior to coming in. 40 minutes into dining, we were still the only party in the restaurant. I wanted to leave as soon as possible, so we ordered only an appetizer and salad. They charged $8 for a hot tea (a non-alcoholic beverage -- neither of us had any alcohol). I have no idea how this place made it on the Michelin guide (they don't have a star or anything) -- but Michelin typically has minimum standards for service, etc. We've eaten out at hundreds of restaurants in Chicago, and I can say that this was by far the most disrespected I have ever felt. At the time we paid the check, we were still the only couple in the restaurant. For a salad and appetizer, the bill was $60 after tax and a 20% tip.

The ambiance feels uncomfortable and pretentious. The employees don't understand what hospitality truly is or service with a genuine wholesome smile. They're overpriced. The music is too loud and I don't like the music at all because It doesn't feel family-friendly and feels more like wild nightlife nightclub music.