Louisville, KYVietnamese

LEO Weekly readers voted it first in both the Vietnamese restaurant and the pho categories of the 2024 Readers' Choice, which is a rare double. Out on Shelbyville Road in the East End, it serves the bun bowls its name promises alongside the broth that won the second vote. Clean room, quick service, no fuss about any of it.

Louisville's longest standing Vietnamese restaurant, founded in 1993, and the subject of a LEO Weekly piece about staying exactly the same. More than a hundred dishes on the menu, a South End following that has not budged in thirty years, and no interest whatsoever in redecorating. Order the pho, or go deep into the menu; both are the point.

Traditional and modern Vietnamese cooking on Shelbyville Road, named in LEO Weekly's roundup of Louisville pho and ramen. The pho comes customizable, and the short rib bowl is the one people talk about afterward. It is a newer room than most of the city's Vietnamese kitchens, and it cooks like it has been at this much longer.

Open since 2011 on Wallace Avenue, and reviewed by LEO Weekly, whose writer called the pho simply made and flawless. The broth is a clear beef bone stock with grass fed brisket, which is the whole argument for the place. A small St. Matthews room with a following that does not need any convincing.