District One Kitchen & Bar

Chinatown’s beloved Vietnamese restaurant District One is making a comeback.

Once the preferred after-work hangout for some of The Strip’s top chefs, bartenders and servers, personnel changes left it in limbo for a few years in the early 2020s. Luckily, the return of Crystina “Mama” Ngyuen (a talented chef who has hosted pop-up restaurants throughout the city) has brought renewed energy and interest to the space that regulars call D1.

“I love her,” celebrity chef Rick Moonen says of Ngyuen. “She knows everybody, and she brings the energy.”

The soups are a big draw. Moonen cites the oxtail pho as the dish he would order for his last meal on earth. The Review-Journal’s Al Mancini cited the lobster pho as one of the five best soups in Las Vegas. And the Los Angeles Times has featured their Big Bone Soup.

But there’s also a great selection of fresh seafood and grilled items. And Ngyuen has added some of her personal favorites, including beef carpaccio, fried quail and gluten-free fried calamari. A bar stocked with Pappy Van Winkle, Louis XIII and other rare and allocated spirits rounds out the offerings