Wong Bar Wine

31/03/2026

Lately at Wong

Yesterday, a couple from Brazil visited us; it was their first time in Asia, and Hanoi was their first stop. They had booked their table for this day a full two months in advance.

The girl seemed more captivated by Wong than her boyfriend; she appeared more deeply immersed in the space, quieter, often letting him do the talking. They asked me about how Wong came into being, and expressed how peaceful this place felt, especially compared to the restless, bustling Hanoi they had seen.

After a while, I returned to my writing while they focused on their conversation. I decided to put on In the Mood for Love - the only vinyl record we have at the bar. Recently, I’ve realized how well this album accompanies writing: gently aching, tender, and at times evoking a nostalgic sense of Angkor Wat.

Just as I began to sink into my words, I started to hear the guest sobbing. Tears welled up in the girl's eyes, mixed with awkward smiles, before they began to flow more freely. I didn’t quite understand what was happening, but seeing her boyfriend remaining calm, I gathered they were doing alright.

Later, when she stepped outside, I asked him: “Is everything okay?” - and he replied: “It’s all good. The music just got her emotional…”
___

Late at night, Đ arrived, a guest both dreamy and hurried. We talked about the film Kokuho (National Treasure) that recently hit the theaters. I had seen it twice, yet only now did I have the chance to talk & hear more about it.

Đ told me something interesting about Japanese Kabuki: they always use the color Red in every performance, as it can transform into many things - the color of blood, of anger, of longing, of sorrow, of sensuality, even of sacred temples… (So it seems Wong Bar Wine and Japan meet at yet another intersection, don't we?)

Near the end of Kokuho, there is an incredibly beautiful line - almost the moment that unties and releases everything, offering an answer to the entire film and the artist's life.

The protagonist is a “national treasure,” the greatest Kabuki actor in Japan. He loves this art more than anything else, and from the beginning, he chose to sacrifice his life for it. Because of that, he was “careless” to his wife and daughter; his daughter grew up without a father’s presence.

At the end, the daughter suddenly appears before him and tells him who she is. She told him she never considered him her father, that she resented his absence and his lack of responsibility toward her and her mother. And yet, every time she watches a Kabuki play he performs, she feels as though her soul is welcoming another “new year”... His performance always brings her into a surreal, transcendent, beautiful world, and she knows she is proud of her father for creating such a thing.

Then Đ turned to me and said, “Every time I walk into Wong, it also feels like I’m welcoming another new year...”

27/03/2026

16/03/2026

And just like that, the year of the Fire Horse began with a proposal…

(and two glasses of Đĩ Già as witnesses).

02/03/2026

I have both heard and read the story of Đức’s father and the papaya leaf. There was a time in prison when he “received” a papaya leaf - half still green, half turning yellow, its veins still firm and strong. Against the long grey years of confinement, that leaf became a vivid painting that captivated him. He hung it on the wall of his cell, the way one might hang a work of art in their own home.

When I sat down at Đức’s desk in his house in Tam Đảo - the desk set before a window looking straight out onto the garden and a stretch of blue sky - the first thing I noticed through that frame was a cluster of papaya leaves… still wholly green. I smiled, thinking of the story Đức had told so many times, and tried to imagine how often he must have sat there, gazing at those leaves, letting them murmur the presence of his father back to him.

These days, for some lovely reasons, my thoughts have drifted back to the two of them. And I also realize just how small, how tender we human beings ultimately are - that whatever sorrow, pain, longing, or ache we carry, we must entrust it all to Nature... in order to bear them.

21/02/2026

Year of Red (&) Horse.

Music video by Alain Bashung performing Osez Joséphine. (C) 1991 Barclay/Universal Music Publishing/Alain Bashung/Banditshttp://vevo.ly/3wjWWs

15/02/2026

Yes we are open throughout Tết. 'Cause what could be better than a glass of wine to end the year, then welcome a new one?

30/01/2026

From sparkling to whites, reds, and oranges… Natural Wine Night Vol 1 brings together three long-standing, trusted winemakers from Italy and France.
Enjoy 20% off the entire wine list over two nights at Wong Bar Wine.

In praise of imperfection.

20/01/2026

MONDAY SCREENING: "HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR"

(English below)

Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959), bộ phim kinh điển của đạo diễn Alain Resnais dựa trên kịch bản của Marguerite Duras, một "thi phẩm điện ảnh" về ký ức, tình yêu và sự bất khả của việc lãng quên. Lấy bối cảnh Hiroshima sau thảm họa bom nguyên tử, bộ phim theo chân cuộc gặp gỡ ngắn ngủi giữa một nữ diễn viên người Pháp và một kiến trúc sư người Nhật, nơi tình yêu và những đối thoại của họ mở ra các tầng ký ức cá nhân đan xen với ký ức tập thể.

Cái "da diết" của phim nằm ở chính những đối thoại mang đậm tính văn chương - gần như độc thoại giữa nhân vật nam và nữ, do nhà văn Marguerite Duras chấp bút, để từ đó đặt ra câu hỏi: Con người sẽ nhớ và quên như thế nào trước một nỗi đau quá lớn, và liệu tình yêu có thể tồn tại trong khoảng mong manh giữa ký ức và quên lãng?

▪ Hiroshima, Mon Amour
▪ 22:00 thứ Hai, 26/01/26
Thời lượng: 1h30'
Ngôn ngữ: tiếng Nhật, Pháp
Phụ đề: tiếng Anh
Số lượng chỗ có hạn.

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Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959) - the classic film by director Alain Resnais, based on a screenplay by Marguerite Duras, is a 'cinematic poem' about memory, love, and the impossibility of forgetting. Set in Hiroshima after the atomic bombing, the film follows a brief encounter between a French actress and a Japanese architect, where their love and whispered conversations unfold layers of one's memory intertwined with collective memory.

What gives the film a sense of ache is its deeply literary dialogues - almost monologues - between the man and the woman, written by Marguerite Duras, from which brings out the question: How do human beings remember and forget in the face of overwhelming pain, and can love exist within the fragile space between memory and oblivion?

▪ Hiroshima, Mon Amour
▪ 10:00 PM, Monday, 26/01/26
Duration: 1h30'
Language: Japanese, French
Subtitles: English
Seats are limited. Please register in advance.

17/01/2026

Motosan Tạm Thương

02/01/2026

new year, same old date.

01/01/2026

Thank you sincerely for your support throughout the past year. We look forward to welcoming you back in the New Year.
Wishing you a joyful, peaceful, and inspiring year ahead.
Happy New Year 🤍

12/12/2025

On these gray days in Hanoi, these words of memory came like a spark of fire. Vivid, sharp, and gentle.

Many thanks to Johanna Christner - our guest from Germany. Below is the English translation (done by AI, of course), the original was published in FAZ Magazine. ❤

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“Beautiful Bars Also Wait In The Dark”
by Johanna Christner
12/12/2025

Even as children we believe this: In the dark, danger lurks. For when the night falls and the nursery lamp no longer shines, one quickly sees a hunchbacked witch, or hears the creaking door behind which a certain ghost must be hiding, or imagines the frightening monster under the bed. Our own imagination plays tricks on us. And yet this fear persists, evolutionarily conditioned, but also shaped by primitive actions.

But fear can be learned. Looking back, one sometimes wishes one had been a little braver. The question keeps tormenting us: “What if…?” One can relate this to the shy girl at the supermarket checkout who secretly has a crush on someone, but then suddenly moves away to another city - without that person ever learning of her fondness. Or even to fear of exploitative circumstances which, in the end, would have made her change her mind about the employment relationship. In Vietnam, these are the beautiful cafés, restaurants and bars that hide away in shady alleyways and dilapidated buildings: whoever does not search, will not win; that too is Hanoi.

“Wong Bar Wine” in Hanoi is like that. But the concept is special, as the narrow alley alone would have kept most people away. The name is based on Wong Kar-wai, a director from Hong Kong. His homeland is something of a place for lovers of melancholy, and thus Quentin Tarantino and Sofia Coppola, both born in 1958 in Shanghai, rave about it and drew inspiration from it. His films are about love and loneliness; he tells stories in a non-linear way, colours change depending on the characters’ moods. For a long time Hollywood tried in vain to grant an Asian person access to the world of film; only a few directors like Wong received such recognition.

Months after Instagram suggested it, I decided to visit “Wong Bar Wine”, so I began the on-site search. And Google Maps got lost - into a dark alley. Just before it had still been bright, but in the puddles the lights reflected, the street sank into dusk. If you follow the path, you will find a cobbler’s shop where shoes are stacked beside his machine, his leather apron hanging there. Then finally: the bar. Heavy sliding doors, glowing red lanterns, and on the door hangs a photo from the film In the Mood for Love; beneath it, it says: “You have found your way here. We thank you.”

It is 7 p.m., one hour before opening. The barkeeper greets his first guest in the scent of red wine drifting out. “Wong Bar Wine” offers a Pinot Noir from France, a Cabernet Sauvignon from Italy, a Gewürztraminer from Alsace. The wine menu is sprinkled with quotations from F. Scott Fitzgerald and illustrations from The Little Prince. And she explains that the bar, which opened in 2022, was founded by a Frenchman and a Vietnamese.

Inside the bar, scenes from Wong Kar-wai films are projected onto the wall; film posters hang on the walls, books lie all around, a typewriter and a music box. Candles flicker on the tables, and next to the wine glass a small plate with chips and dip is served. Every now and then an older man with a white beard rattles past on his moped, a box on the luggage rack: a delivery.

Travelling alone means constantly meeting people with whom one has the most interesting conversations. That includes the barkeeper she meets this evening. He offers her a glass, invites her to ask what one usually wants to know from a barkeeper. For months, the “New York Times” has been writing about this bar, since it has long attracted international guests, he says. But things are not always as lively as on this evening, he adds, because tonight he seems to her as if he had stepped straight out of a Wong film.

People say: In the dark, one sometimes finds beautiful bars.