The Best Pho in Adelaide — and the Story Behind the Red Coin
★ As featured in Glam Adelaide — 2025 SA Restaurant & Catering Awards finalist
If you have spent any time chasing the best pho in Adelaide, you already know the question is never just about noodles. It is about the broth — the deep, amber, slow-simmered broth that tells you everything before the first spoonful even reaches your lips. At Bà Năm Restaurant on 65 Grote St, that broth is the point, and the dish it lifts highest is our Phở Tái: a bowl crowned with a paper-thin, round, red slice of rare beef we call the red coin, cooked raw in the bowl by boiling 18-hour bone broth. It is the bowl Bà Năm is famous for, and the reason so many Adelaide locals now call this little Grote Street kitchen home.
What makes the best pho in Adelaide
The best pho is never the result of a single ingredient. It is the sum of four honest things — broth, beef, noodles and herbs — and the refusal to take shortcuts on any of them. The broth must be clear yet deep, scented with star anise, cinnamon, charred ginger and onion, and built on bones that have given up everything they have. The beef must be fresh and locally sourced, sliced thin enough to cook in seconds. The noodles must be tender but still have a little bite. And the herbs — Thai basil, sawtooth coriander, mint, bean sprouts, lime, chilli — must arrive at the table alive and fragrant, ready for you to build the bowl your way.
We do not believe in polish over soul. There is no theatre for its own sake here, no deconstructed garnish, no pretension. Just a generous, hearty bowl of comfort food, the kind that fuels you up for a big, enthusiastic day. That is what pho has always been in our family — everyday food that happens to be extraordinary — and it is what we set out to bring to the Adelaide CBD when we opened in 2023.
The 18-hour bone broth that anchors every bowl
Everything we serve rests on one thing: an 18-hour bone broth. We start with bones, water and fire, then add the aromatics the way Bà Năm Lời always did — ginger and onion charred over an open flame until blackened and sweet, toasted spices, a long, patient simmer. Eighteen hours is not a marketing number. It is roughly how long it takes for the bones to give up their collagen and minerals and for the broth to turn silky without going cloudy. Skim, taste, skim again. There is no powder, no concentrate, no shortcut.
That broth is what makes our Phở Tái possible. Because it is genuinely boiling when it leaves the pot, it carries enough heat to cook paper-thin beef raw in the bowl. It is also the reason a bowl of pho here tastes like it has been made for you, not pulled from a vat — because, in a real sense, it has.
The red coin: Phở Tái, the dish Bà Năm is famous for
If there is one dish that tells the Bà Năm story in a single bowl, it is Phở Tái. We lay a paper-thin, round slice of fresh local rare beef over the noodles — raw, deep red, almost translucent at the edges. It looks, our regulars like to say, like a little red coin resting on a bed of white noodles. Then we pour the boiling 18-hour broth over the top, and the red coin turns pink and tender in seconds, cooked rare right there in front of you.
It is a small thing, but it is everything. The beef is locally sourced, sliced to order, and never pre-cooked. You watch it change colour. You smell the broth rise. You eat it while it is still pink and meltingly tender. That is the bowl Bà Năm is famous for, and the one we will keep making exactly the same way for as long as the doors are open. (You can read more about it in our piece on the bone broth and the red coin.)
From a 1970s kitchen in Trảng Bàng to 65 Grote St, Adelaide
The recipes we cook today are not ours to change. They belong to Bà Năm Lời — “Grandma Nam” — who began selling pho from her home kitchen in Trảng Bàng, Tây Ninh, Vietnam, in the 1970s. She cooked for neighbours, for workers, for anyone who turned up hungry. The broths she made became the broths her children and grandchildren grew up on, and the recipes were passed down the way family recipes always are: by standing beside the pot, watching, tasting, repeating, until the hands remember what the mind has forgotten.
Her grandson, Huynh Nguyen — our manager — alongside owner Thi Gai Vo, brought those recipes to Adelaide and opened Bà Năm Restaurant in 2023. Nothing was modernised. Nothing was “adapted for local tastes.” We cook the way Bà Năm Lời cooked, because the whole point of coming this far was to keep that kitchen alive. The address changed. The recipes did not.
Why Adelaide locals come back
People come to Bà Năm for a lot of reasons — the broth, the red coin, the price (Phở Bò is $18 small or $20 large, and the signature Phở Thố Đá stone-bowl pho with Wagyu is $23) — but they come back because of how a bowl here makes them feel. This is hearty, generous comfort food. Come ready to be fuelled up for a big day, the kind of day that needs enthusiasm and a full stomach, and we will send you out into Adelaide well looked after.
We will be honest with you, too: at peak hours you can expect a 15–30 minute wait. We cook everything fresh, no shortcuts, and that takes the time it takes. If you are short on time, order ahead online and skip the queue. We would rather you wait a little and eat something genuine than rush you through something that isn’t.
It is not a luxury venue. It is a Chinatown family pho spot — small, busy, warm — and that is exactly what we want it to be. As one of our team likes to say, it is not a luxury venue, just very genuine.
Press we are proud of
Bà Năm was named a finalist in the 2025 Hostplus SA Restaurant & Catering Awards for Excellence (Vietnamese Restaurant category) and featured by Glam Adelaide, who wrote about a Chinatown family pho spot serving up grandma’s authentic recipe. You can also find us in the Glam Adelaide directory and under the Bà Năm Restaurant tag, with the awards coverage here.
Behind that recognition is the unglamorous work that makes the food what it is: every Sunday, Huynh drives out to local farms to pick up fresh vegetables for the week ahead. Locally sourced beef, farm-fresh produce, and recipes unchanged since the 1970s — that is the whole formula. No secrets, no shortcuts, just a family doing the same thing Bà Năm Lời did in Trảng Bàng, now on Grote Street. If you are exploring more of the city’s Vietnamese food, our guide to Vietnamese food in the Adelaide CBD is a good place to start.
Beyond phở
Once phở has you hooked, there’s a whole family of Vietnamese noodle soups worth working through — see our guide to Vietnamese noodle soups in Adelaide, from the crab-and-tomato bún riêu to turmeric-gold mì quảng. Two favourites even have their own guides: the bolder, spicier bún bò huế and the Phnom Penh classic hủ tiếu Nam Vang.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the best pho in Adelaide?
Locals point to Bà Năm Restaurant at 65 Grote Street, Adelaide CBD — known for 18-hour bone broth and the Phở Tái “red coin” of paper-thin local rare beef. We are open 7 days, 11am–9pm (9:30pm Oct–Mar), including public holidays.
What is the Phở Tái red coin?
Phở Tái is beef phở topped with paper-thin, round slices of fresh local beef that look like red coins. Boiling 18-hour broth is poured over them in the bowl, cooking the beef to rare in seconds so it arrives pink and tender.
How much is pho at Bà Năm?
Phở Bò is $18 (small) or $20 (large); the signature Phở Thố Đá stone-bowl pho with Wagyu is $23. Order at 65 Grote St or online at order.phobanam.com.au.
Is there a wait?
At peak hours expect a 15–30 minute wait — we cook everything fresh, no shortcuts. Order ahead online to skip the queue.
Is the beef local?
Yes. We source beef locally, and Huynh drives to farms every Sunday to pick up fresh vegetables. It is part of what Glam Adelaide called “very genuine” cooking.