Under the theme “A Quartet of Flavor,” from October 5 to November 29, 2026, acclaimed chefs from The Brix, Mekong Merchant and Fume join Executive Chef Ivan Barone of host restaurant Saigon Café, each taking the helm for one week before all four gather for a closing week. The season is one of the hotel’s efforts to connect and inspire culinary creativity in Ho Chi Minh City.

Ho Chi Minh City, October 7, 2026 — On the evening of October 5, 2026, Sheraton Saigon Grand Opera Hotel officially launched Flavorhood Season 2 in the Grand Lobby, attended by members of the press, partners and loyal guests. Four chefs from four restaurants — Chef Phong Nguyen (The Brix), Chef Jay Taylor (Mekong Merchant), Chef Ivan Barone (Saigon Café) and Chef Shozo Tsuruhara (Fume) — took the stage together to open a culinary season running from October 5 to November 29, 2026 at Saigon Café.

After 23 years as a culinary home on Dong Khoi, Saigon Café is opening its kitchen to three peers from some of the city’s best-loved restaurants. For Sheraton Saigon Grand Opera Hotel, Flavorhood is an effort to bring the chefs and restaurants of Ho Chi Minh City around one shared table, where each kitchen brings its own technique and recipes to a new stage — and, in doing so, to spur the city’s culinary creativity.

Flavorhood — Where the Flavors of the City’s Streets Share One Table Every city has a map of flavor, and that map is drawn street by street. Flavorhood blends “flavor” and “neighborhood””: a place where each restaurant and each neighborhood contributes its own taste of Ho Chi Minh City. Launched in 2025 with a short pilot season alongside some of the city’s best-known chefs, Flavorhood has become the hotel’s annual culinary series. Season 2 arrives under the theme “A Quartet of Flavor”: four flavors from four kitchens meeting at one table.

Chef Ivan Barone, Executive Chef and host of Flavorhood, personally invited this season’s three guest chefs to take over a station at Saigon Café. Speaking about that invitation, he shared: “From friendship to collaboration — ‘from Brotherhood to Flavorhood’ — that journey shaped this one-of-a-kind partnership, and it is why I invited these three chefs. Each leads a kitchen that guests love and connoisseurs respect, and all are ready to bring the best of what they do to the Saigon Café buffet. As Executive Chef, I will lead a station of my own, bringing the distinctive flavors of my native Italy together with ingredients from Vietnam.”

Four Chapters, One Season of Flavorhood

Flavorhood follows a one-week-on, one-week-off rhythm, giving each chef a moment of their own. Each chef personally opens the first evening of their week; their station then serves for seven days with the same recipes and the same standards. Between chapters, Saigon Café returns to its regular buffet; Grand Chefs Market follows directly after Chapter Four.

Chapter One (October 5–11) — Chef Phong Nguyen, The Brix: “Mediterranean on Wood Fire.” The Brix is a tropical poolside restaurant at 26 Tran Ngoc Dien, Thao Dien, where Mediterranean flavors meet French technique in signature dishes cooked over wood fire. Raised in France in a family with Asian roots, Chef Phong opens Season 2 with a week of The Brix’s MediterrAsian spirit: bold pairings, familiar ingredients seen from a new angle and flavors made to spark curiosity. At Saigon Café, guests will find his chicken dish and his vanilla-coconut riso dessert.

Chapter Two (October 19–25) — Chef Jay Taylor, Mekong Merchant: “Two Decades of Western Comfort.” For more than two decades, Mekong Merchant has been Thao Dien’s “best-kept secret”: a courtyard ringed by thatched roofs, a blackboard of seafood that changes daily and its own bread oven. For over 12 years, first as Executive Chef and then General Manager, Chef Jay has led the restaurant. He brings that spirit to Saigon Café with lamb shoulder slow-roasted for eight hours, zucchini salad with smoked labneh and slow-fermented-dough pizza.

Chapter Three (November 2–8) — Chef Ivan Barone, Saigon Café: “The Host Cooks Italian.” Mid-season, the host takes back his own station at Saigon Café, the hotel’s culinary home on Dong Khoi since 2003, where the honesty of the Italian kitchen meets the brightness of Vietnamese produce. The station serves linguine Cacio e Pepe in a wheel of Parmigiano cheese with spicy Sichuan-style lobster, and the Cheesy Focaccina.

Chapter Four (November 16–22) — Chef Shozo Tsuruhara, Fume: “Japanese Cooked in Smoke.” Fume is a contemporary Japanese omakase restaurant tucked into a discreet alley at 74/7L Hai Ba Trung. Born in Kobe, Chef Shozo stepped into a Japanese kitchen at fifteen and opened Fume in 2019 serving binchotan charcoal, straw-fired warayaki and seasonal ingredients sourced from Japan. Together with Sous Chef Tatsuo Sasaki, he leads the Japanese station, with signature sushi and sashimi.

Grand Chefs Market (November 23–29) — the closing chapter. All four Flavorhood chefs return to Saigon Café, each at a station of their own, in the only week all four cook together. Four kitchens loved at different addresses across the city come together under one roof: the Mediterranean flavors and wood fire of The Brix, the Western cooking of Mekong Merchant, the Italian flavors of host Saigon Café and the contemporary Japanese flavors of Fume.

For guests, it is the whole season in one sitting: a rare chance to meet all four kitchens in a single evening, or to return to a favorite from any chapter, without crossing the city to four restaurants at four different addresses. For the four kitchens, it is an opportunity to be introduced to Saigon Café’s community of international and local guests — one table, four flavors, in a single week.

Saigon Café — Seven Live Cooking Stations, a Shared Home for Four Kitchens

At Saigon Café, chefs, kitchens and culinary stories from across the city come together around one table, with seven interactive live cooking stations where guests watch each dish come together before their eyes. Every station is built around flavors that suit both international guests and Vietnamese diners, and the restaurant is known for its phở, its seafood dishes and its tiramisu served on the spot. Throughout Flavorhood, the seafood buffet — with Nha Trang lobster, crab, grilled oysters, sushi, sashimi and Asian and European dishes — remains in place, and each guest chef’s station sits within the buffet itself. The restaurant recommends booking early, especially during the guest chefs’ weeks and the Grand Chefs Market finale.

Speaking at the launch event, Mr. Julian Wong, General Manager of Sheraton Saigon Grand Opera Hotel, shared: “Four chefs. Four restaurants. One table. A collaboration like this is one of a kind in Ho Chi Minh City, where great kitchens share a stage and together raise the city’s dining scene.”

On the spirit of Flavorhood, he added: “At Sheraton, we are the world’s gathering place. In Saigon, that means one simple promise: we connect and we welcome everybody. Flavorhood brings that promise to the table, where local and international guests sit side by side, taste the same dishes and share the same stories.”

Saigon Café never stops refreshing its culinary offering. Launched in 2025, Ticket to Asia is the hotel’s Asian culinary series: each season takes guests to a different country or region, alongside guest chefs from the Marriott International system. The journey has taken guests through Koh Samui, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Penang and Kuala Lumpur, and has now drawn to a close. Continuing the story, Flavorhood turns toward the city itself, bringing Saigon’s acclaimed chefs into the kitchen at 88 Dong Khoi and introducing deserving restaurants to a wider international audience, in a shared effort to advance Ho Chi Minh City’s culinary scene. Each chapter is a kitchen; each station, a story of the city.