NYC’s Hottest Bánh Mì Shop Sells Thousands a Week — The Experts

Since opening in April 2025, Bánh Anh Em has become the hottest new Vietnamese Restaurant in NYC, well-known for two things: its long lines and handcrafted bánh mì sandwiches that sell out weekly by the thousands. Nhu Ton, chef and co-owner, dedicated years to developing the perfect recipe for the bánh mì — going to France and Vietnam to make the perfect baguette, experimenting with different hot sauces, and making their own Vietnamese ham, chả lụa, by hand.

#vietnam #sandwich #nyc

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:42 Making the Popular Roasted Pork Bánh Mì
02:04 Working on the Bread
04:25 Homemade Hot Sauce Program
05:10 Prepping Chef’s Favorite Sandwich — Bánh Mì Pate
06:31 Marinating the BBQ Pork
07:13 Making the Most Popular Sandwich — OG Bánh Mì
08:42 The Hype Behind the Restaurant’s Long Lines

Credits:
Producer/Director: Gabby Lozano
Camera: Murilo Ferreira, Connor Reid
Production Sound Mixer: Bill Vella
Editor: Lucy Morales Carlisle

Executive Producer: Stephen Pelletteri
Head of Production: Stefania Orrù
Supervising Producer: Connor Reid
Post-Production Supervisor: Lucy Morales Carlisle
Director of Production: Michelle Fox
Senior Director of Photography: Murilo Ferreira
Supervising Producer, Social Video: Jordan Shalhoub

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We sell more than 2,000 sandwiches 
a week. We have the OG, which is the classic cold cut, barbecue pork, rip eye steak.
And then we also have the mini Bánh mì que Hải Phòng We have the line since day one about 
5:15 was when I got here. 5:48. You know, most of my customer in my opinion, they 
kind of know about Vietnamese food already. So, they come and they see like how much 
we care for Vietnamese craftsmanship. So, the most popular sandwich is our roasted pork 
sandwich. So, this one I just poke the skin. So, if you see right, all the skin is poked. 
We’re going to poke it second times after we remove the salt. But right now, I going to 
season it. This is our own roasted pork rub. Roasted pork in Vietnam is really popular, 
especially in Saigon. But surprisingly, it’s really hard to find this kind 
of sandwich and not only New York, but in America. I think because the technique is 
really hard to get it right. It’s a layer of meat, a layer of fat. So it had to be balance of both 
and then the skin is super super important. So with the second location, we always ask our staff 
for advice. I asked them what they miss the most and surprisingly they really miss bánh mì and pho.
So this one it will dry out the skin and we don’t want any moisture on the skin. So after I done 
I already heat up the oven. I going to put it inside the oven 175F for 30 minutes. You 
know bánh mì is everywhere but quality bánh mì is not. That’s the moment that I decided to, you 
know, really deep dive into how to make really fresh bánh mì. We’re going to start making the 
dough. So the bread itself we make it in house. The filling we make it in house. We’re going 
to whisk it for 2 minutes and then we add ice. So the ingredient it’s very simple. It wheat flour 
but we use a very high quality wheat flour, sugar, salt and yeast. But we also have this one. I 
think it’s a key ingredient. It help the bread to become very fluffy inside. But whisking the dough 
is the very first step. It’s going to decide if the dough turns out right or not. For example, 
if you whisk it too much with Vietnamese bánh mì. the crust it will be too hard and the inside it 
could be too chewy. So just finish the dough. Ongdi our bread master. Magically he learned the 
bread so quickly. A lot of customer ask us to sell the bread to go. It’s just such a labor intense 
process and we can’t really make it enough like sometime we open only like 2 hour and we already 
sold out the bread. This is our dough. It have been proofing overnight and we’re going to start 
shaping. So I slam it to make it flat but also like release all the bubble inside. The reason why 
I travel back to Vietnam, even though I was born and grew up over there, I just want to learn more 
about Vietnamese craftsmanship because Vietnamese food, it looks so simple, but it’s not. It need 
a lot of patient. It need a lot of skill. With this one batch of bread, it took us like a day to 
make it. With machine and everything, probably it take only couple hours. Now, I think there’s 
a beauty of working something with your hand so you can feel it. We done with shaping. Now I 
going to put it inside the proofer for 3 hours. After it’s proof, we’re going to start baking it. 
And uh it will ready for dinner service. Our bánh mì we bake it fresh right before we open and we 
bake during service. We don’t let our bánh mì sit for hours. So this is the hot sauce station. I 
love eating spicy food. So hot sauce is really important to me. Several guests come and ask us 
for Sriracha. We don’t offer Sriracha. We don’t even have Sriracha in Vietnam. And we make all of 
our hot sauce in house. This one is the Hoy ang hot sauce that we pair with our sandwiches. This one 
is Tương Ớt Nhà Làm hot sauce is for our mini pate sandwich. And this one is the pickle mustard green that we 
use it for our roasted pork sandwich. We do wild fermentation. That’s why it’s important for me to 
check almost everyday. I would say it need only like one or two more weeks. All the element is 
really important to make a great sandwich. The pâté to me is the soul of the sandwich. There’s so 
many different style of pâté, but I feel like if the pâté is not good, then you know the sandwich 
doesn’t have that much flavor. I tried so many places and I think the pâté is not close to the 
pate that I grew up eating it. So I just decided to make it. This is our pork fat. We make pâté two 
three times a week. So this batch is last only two three days. Ground pork. This is a combination 
of chicken and pork liver. I going to add the seasoning. garlic powder, peppers, chicken powder, 
fish sauce, crispy onions, and our homemade hot sauce. The bread have been sitting inside heavy 
cream for over an hour. So, I’m going to put it in here. After this, we’re going to start to like use 
hand blender and mix it. Bánh mì que Hải Phòng is my favorite. That bánh mì is very simple. It’s mini size. 
It’s only have pâté, pork floss and our fermented hot sauce. If I can pick one dishes really 
represent my cooking, that would be the sandwich. I going to start to marinate the barbecue pork. 
This is also one of our bestselling items here. This is pork belly. And this one is the mixture 
between oyster sauce and hoisin sauce. One of the reason why I think it’s really popular is good. 
But the fact that we grill it over charcoal, it give an extra flavor. And the last step, I going 
to add lemongrass here and just mix everything up. So now I’m done with marinating. I will put 
it inside the walk-in for 2 days. Because the restaurant here the kitchen is small. So we 
make all of our cold cut in Upper West location. So this is Vietnamese ham. It’s very simple but 
it’s really hard to make. You know it’s important for us to make it fresh. The different between 
fresh Chả and the frozen one. You see like how juicy it is? We try different thickness. If it too 
thin, then you can’t really taste the cold cut. After it’s cool down, we’re going to put the ham 
inside the walking and get it ready for service. After you take um the bread out of the oven, the 
temperature will drop dramatically. You will start to see the crackling here is one of the sign that 
you know that that’s a legit Vietnamese bânh mì. We have six sandwiches. We have the 
OG, which is the classic cold cut. So, I’m going to put the pâté in first. 
Normally with the OG sandwich, we put a lot of pâté. We’re going to start 
layer the ham. And then this is Vietnam and pickle carrots. We want to like 
mix all different kind of herbs. It’s not only like cilantro. And one of 
my favorite Vietnamese herbs is rau răm which is Vietnamese mint. This is the OG bánh mì. [Music] 
So this is the pork after we marinate for two days. So it’s ready for dinner service. We’re 
going to grill it over charcoal first. [Music] So right now it’s 5:00 p.m. around like this 
time or around 5:30 customer going to start line up. The line can get really long. So 
we going to make sure the pork is ready and I going to check on you know every station to 
make sure all the station is prepared properly. Uh but it’s going to get really busy. We have the 
line since day one 30 to 40 minutes right before we open. Customers start to line up. Yeah, 
I was the first person in line. Got here at 5:15. He’s earlier than me. I I got here at 6:52, 
too. So, a lot of my friends have told me about it and like have had rave reviews. I’m also 
Vietnamese and I’ve always wanted I’m looking for like good spots in the city for Vietnamese 
food. We expected there’d be a line, but we’re already here. We don’t do reservation because I 
grew up in Vietnam and there was no reservation kind of culture back in the day. If you go to 
any vendor, you just have to wait. And to me, whoever like willing to wait, it say a lot. They 
want to try my food. And I think that’s important. So, we sell more than 2,000 sandwiches 
a week. Our bánh mì at the beginning, we sold out almost every day. Even now, last 
week, we sold out bánh mì around like 8:30. I was really shocked. But it’s also like 
my dream because I feel like, you know, Vietnamese food, it look really simple, 
but it take a lot of time and effort to make. [Music] I feel like a lot of people, they 
don’t see the craftsmanship that we put behind the dish. And when I see like people willing to 
wait and try our food, it make me really happy.