Husband and wife's 'vision' to fill 'Liverpool gap'

A husband and wife are hoping their “visionary” restaurant will fill a much-needed gap in Liverpool. Phil and Krissy Hong, who live just outside the city centre, are the brains behind the recently opened Le Viet Social.

Found in Parliament Square, the Vietnamese restaurant serves recipes that have been passed down generations through the Hong family. While Phil, a 42-year-old originally from Manchester, caters to the guests in the front of the house, Krissy, a 44-year-old from Israel, is in the kitchen cooking up traditional meals.

The eatery offers everything from Cha Nem Chay, traditional Viet spring rolls, and Thit Heo Quay, crackling roast pork, to Pho Ga and Bo Tai. It is these types of dishes Phil believes the city is missing.

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The business owner, whose parents are Vietnamese, told the ECHO: “Krissy has all the ingredients that have been in our family for years. These are our roots, and they are extremely important.

"This is us, and this is our life. We are serving food that our parents and grandparents cooked. This is food that we have both grown up on. All the flavours are flavours we’ve been having for a long time.”

Although it is a restaurant by name and nature, Phil is keen to explore the venue's social side. He explained that customers are welcome to come in the afternoon to enjoy lunch together or indulge in a coffee.

He said: “There aren’t many Vietnamese restaurants, especially to the scale we are doing it. We are excited to be offering this to Liverpool.

"We’ve had a good few weeks, and we just want to continue growing. Our vision is to create an elegant space, but yet don’t expect people to come dressed fancy. I think we are filling a gap. There isn’t a restaurant in the city like us, doing what we do.”

Le Viet Social is open every day except Monday from 11 a.m. It is located on Parliament Street in the L1 area of Liverpool.