The team behind hit NYC Thai restaurants Soothr and Sappe is turning their attention to a different Southeast Asian country: Vietnam. Parent company Sawasdee Hospitality Management is opening a new Vietnamese restaurant, Annam Tân, in Midtown East at 33
E. 33rd Street, between Park and Madison avenues, ideally in February.
The Vietnamese focus stems from executive chef and partner Joel Chidensee Watthanawongwat. He shares that his grandmothers were from northern Vietnam, spent time in Laos, and then ended up in Thailand, where he was born.
“Annam Tân is an expression of that journey, celebrating Vietnamese culinary heritage and its connections to the broader Indochinese region through a contemporary New York lens,” he writes through a rep.
“Annam” refers to the name of what was the French region that is now Vietnam from the 1880s into the 1940s; “Tân” comes from the Sino-Vietnamese character that means “new.”
“At its heart, the restaurant is a culinary memoir of a Việt kiều,” he says, referring to the Vietnamese term for “overseas Vietnamese.” “It’s not simply about recreating the Vietnam my family left behind, but exploring the Vietnam they carried with them, and how those traditions continue to evolve across generations.”
The space is 11,000 square feet, with a bar featuring a dramatic overhang, murals of flora and birds, and pops of green and yellow. Watthanawongwat writes that the team took their design cues from French Indochine.
Soothr opened in the East Village in 2020, with a pan-regional look at Thai food and an emphasis on noodles. They opened Sappe in the West Village, centered on Isaan cuisine. Then they expanded Soothr into Long Island City in 2025, with an offshoot dedicated to Thai-style poached chicken and rice, Soothr Khao Mun Gai, in April.
