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Years ago, the late Anthony Bourdain found his favourite Lunch Lady at a nameless noodle stall in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) Vietnam and told the whole world about it. As Chef Nguyen Thi Thanh went from a local legend to a global culinary icon, her legacy carried across the pond with the opening of Vancouver’s Lunch Lady.
Inspired by and made in collaboration with Thi Thanh, the East Vancouver spot is led by Executive Chef and Culinary Director Benedict Lim, who co-owns the restaurant with Michael and Victoria Tran. Quickly evolving from a neighbourhood eatery to a Michelin-recognized spot across North America, Lunch Lady recently ranked in the top 10 global restaurants for 2026.
Lim has been on the pans since day dot, though it was a long journey to get there. After being classically trained at Dubrulle Culinary Institute, he spent year after year trying to absorb and learn from as many chefs and places that he could. All this hard work put him in the path of Michael Tran, who had just been given the green light to develop Thi Thanh’s menu into a Vancouver restaurant.
“The story was so rich and colourful and soulful, being put on the map by Bourdain’s program [No Reservations] and Thi Thanh being a legend at this point,” Lim told Time Out. “I didn’t exactly know what I was getting into, I just knew the opportunity was bigger than me.”
Six years on and they’ve expanded for the first time in the city to Time Out Market Vancouver, with a menu that packs in all the classics, including rice plates with a twist, daily soups and street food – all things crispy, flavourful and Anthony Bourdain approved.
We catch up with Lim following the recent opening to find out more about his journey.
What did food mean to you growing up?
Food is something that has always revolved around my family from both my grandma’s to my mum and dad’s household. The greeting would never be like ‘how are you’ but ‘have you eaten yet’. Food conveyed love and care, it could ultimately improve someone’s day.
And how did it evolve from there?
When I started my culinary career I was young and it was around the time when the Food Network was around and Anthony Bourdain launched Cooks Tour and being a chef was more than just slumming it out in a greasy kitchen. Being a chef was interesting. That was my start, I worked at a few catering places where I got yelled at a lot, peeled a lot of potatoes.
How did the opportunity at Lunch Lady come to be?
I became a part time server which led me to front-of-house and operations which is where I learnt how to run a business. Then I moved into private dining. We would do West Coast Japanese in people’s homes, that’s how I met Mike (Michael Tran), my partner at Lunch Lady. I cooked for a lot of his friends and colleagues.
I came on board when he got the green light with Chef Nguyen Thi Thanh and then Michael needed someone to lead the program in Vancouver. At the time it was unheard of to let a non-Vietnamese person operate a Vietnamese program. So he took a bit of a shot with me. I didn’t exactly know what I was getting into either. I just knew the opportunity was bigger than me.
How did you get up to speed?
I flew to Vietnam right away and took a crash course – which isn’t enough to learn a cuisine in three weeks. So it took some time for me to understand what is correct and original taste and what was brand identity. I came in to establish systems, to make sure recipes were consistent and the way we wanted them to be. As well as compliment Thi Thanh’s daily soups with the usual suspects of the rice plates, spring rolls and so on.
Our kitchens are made up of Vietnamese chefs and non-Vietnamese. We’ve got Dutch guys, Nepalese, Filipino, Mexican. It’s turned global but everyone understands the directive to produce this culture’s food and do it at a very high level.
How would you sum up your Time Out Market Vancouver menu?
Small, flavoursome and approachable.
What dishes should everyone try?
An appetiser that’s very uniquely Lunch Lady is probably the tiger prawns. They’re basically prawns with a floating shell – inspired by a restaurant in Las Vegas. Michael went there and fell in love with the idea of no waste, and the restaurant was Thai, so in Vietnam they follow the same ethics of no waste, so he came back and told me about the idea. It took us 12 iterations to get to something we’re happy with. You’ve got prawn, semi separated. You’ve got the shell there, very crispy – eats like a cracker. Snackable.
My favourite rice dish by far is just lemongrass chicken on rice. For soups we’ve got the pho which is the backbone of Vietnamese cuisine. We’re featuring bún bò Huế, which is a spicy beef noodle soup using Thi Thanh’s recipe.
Then lastly we have a dessert that can do no wrong. It’s our take on CHÈ BA MÀU. We turned it into a sticky rice cake that we treat like French toast, it has a puree of strawberry and red bean. We turned the mung beans into a streusel and then we topped it with a house made coconut condensed milk ice cream.
Find the full Time Out Market Vancouver lineup here.
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