Food in Luang Prabang - A Guide to the Best Places to Eat
Luang Prabang, the cultural capital of Laos, is stuffed full of amazing food. From street stalls serving traditional Laotian dishes to fine dining, pizzas and everything in between, whatever your mood, this beautiful city has a dish for you. We have now spent nearly a month exploring all that Luang Prabang has to offer to the culinarily curious; we have eaten everything, from the humblest street food to dining in the most luxurious restaurants. This guide to Luang Prabang will show you the very best food the city has to offer.
As we are long term backpackers we generally seek out a more local, budget friendly, street food style of dining. When travelling the best food is very seldom to be found in air-conditioned, hotel restaurants. Come as we go down the backstreets and go off the beaten path for some hidden culinary gems in Luang Prabang… As well as some more luxurious options… we are human after all!
All over Luang Prabang you’ll see baskets of red chillies drying in the sun!
In this Luang Prabang food article you can find:
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Where to Eat Breakfast in Luang Prabang
Luang Prabang Morning Market
(location)
As dawn breaks, the streets surrounding the morning market become thick with the smell of burning charcoal, bubbling soups and grilling fish. Luang Prabang’s Morning Market sells everything from cooked dishes to the very freshest of meats - some still so fresh they’re trying to escape! It’s a whirlwind of activity, smell and colours with busy locals shopping for all they’ll need for the day ahead.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and Luang Prabang’s Morning Market is a great place to start the day. There are noodle soup vendors selling delicious bowls of steaming goodness as well as grilled sticky rice on sticks, deep fried bananas and any amount of fresh fruit. We would particularly recommend picking up some of the freshly grilled meats and a ball of sticky rice for a delicious traditional Laotian breakfast that will keep you full for hours.
We would recommend getting to the market early, perhaps right after you’ve seen the Morning Alms Giving Ceremony - you can read more about Luang Prabang’s Morning Alm’s Giving Ceremony here.
After 7 to 8 AM most of the truly local vendors will have sold their wares, packed up their stalls and moved on. There will still be stalls to see and places to eat, but the market will not be at its vibrant best, so get there early!
Street Side Porridge
(location)
One of our favourite breakfasts in the whole of Southeast Asia is rice soup or rice porridge. Vietnamese chao, Thai congee and Cambodian borbor are some of our favourite ways to start the day on this side of the world. We’re happy to report that Laos has its own excellent offering in this genre of breakfast!
Google Maps lists our favourite street side vendor as “No Name Rice Soup”, always a good indicator that this porridge stall will be a truly local affair. A few chairs under a plastic tarpaulin, alongside some charcoal fired cauldrons is all there is to this simple but delicious eatery. Selling soups and rice porridge, there’s a very limited menu but you can’t go wrong. Extremely cheap and completely delicious, we ate our breakfast here several times.
We always ordered the pork rice porridge and can highly recommend the extra marinated egg or for a creamy treat adding a poached egg. When your bowl comes to the table, pimp it as you like with soy, chilli or pepper.
Pasaniyom Traditional Cafe
(location)
Just down the road from Luang Prabang’s Morning Market you’ll find a crowd of people mobbing the entrance to Pansaniyom Traditional Cafe, an institution of the area. The cafe is famous for its excellent rice soups, as well as its delicious traditional Laos coffees, Thai teas and fried Chinese dough sticks.
Our go-to breakfast was again, rice porridge but this time paired with dough sticks and rocket fuelled Laotian coffee. It was a great meal, well worth the short queue and it completely set us up for a day exploring.
Everything we tried from the menu was delicious and reasonably priced, just be warned it is busy and the next door shop (which looks extremely similar) will always try to poach you. That being said, the next door shop is very tasty as well so it’s not the end of the world if you do get poached!
Despite looking similar, no bowl of rice porridge is ever the same!
French Bakery at Le Banneton Cafe
(location)
Sometimes you need a little dose of Western comfort. Sometimes you just don’t feel like starting your day with rice. On days like that we would turn to the patisserie and French bakery at Le Banneton Cafe.
The cafe is open all day serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. The menu covers everything from sweet French pastries to baguettes, sandwiches, salads and burgers. We would particularly recommend treating yourself to one of the breakfast set menus that will come with a tea or coffee, freshly squeezed fruit juices, baguette, eggs, ham or bacon as well as butter and jams.
All of the baked goods we tried were excellent, one of the few good legacies of the French Colonial era is that the Laotians have hung on to their baking expertise. Le Banneton is more expensive than the Laotian breakfast options we’ve listed so far, but it’s still very reasonably priced, especially the set menus.
The cafe also has a small shop selling French wine, cheese, deli meats and tinned goods. As an added bonus the dining room is also fully air-conditioned!
Lunch in Luang Prabang
Julie’s Village Noodles
(location)
A local legend, this small noodle shop sits in the front garden of a house next door to the Wat Xieng Thong temple. We have been here multiple times on all of our 3 stays in Luang Prabang, it’s just that good!
Julie’s Village Noodles has a limited menu of a few different noodle soups each available in combination with a small selection of meats. Our favourite was always the khao soi. If you’ve just come from Northern Thailand, be aware Laotian khao soi is nothing like the Thai dish of the same name. Khao soi literally just means “Northern Noodle” so it can vary wildly from place to place.
At Julie’s Village Noodles the khao soi is a rich, sweet, peppery, tomato based broth topped with ground pork and layers of silky smooth rice noodles. Alongside these near perfect bowls, comes a punnet of fresh herbs and crunchy green vegetables with a peanut sauce perfect for dipping green beans and leaves of lettuce into!
There’s nothing more comforting than a bowl of Laotian khao soi!
The whole meal is perfectly balanced, filling and a fantastic introduction to the nuance and subtlety of Laotian food. It is also very cheap! The restaurant gets extremely busy and will close as soon as everything has sold out. Don’t count on it being open for a late lunch. Get there early, it’s worth it!
Julie’s Village Noodles sits surrounded by some of Luang Prabang’s most beautiful temples; it would make a great stop during a temple tour of the city. Check out our guide to Luang Prabang’s temples here.
You can pimp your bowl with everything from herbs, lettuce, lime, chilli oil and deep fried garlic!
Roadside Noodle Soup
(location)
If Julie’s Village Noodles has awakened your craving for Laotian noodles, then another humble, yet mighty Laotian noodle joint can be found roadside next to a busy junction, south of Luang Prabang’s Old Quarter. This nondescript restaurant serves fantastic crispy pork noodles as well as the standard backpacker favourites of fried rice and fried noodles.
We always ordered the crispy pork noodle soup and chose to have it with the delicious, chewy, yellow egg noodles. The broth was peppery and potent with garlic, with the crispy pork providing richness and a delicious crunchy texture from its crackling skin. This restaurant, like so many on this list, is super cheap and consistently good!
The restaurant is just a short walk away from Luang Prabang’s UXO Visitor Centre (read more about visiting UXO Lao here), so if you’re visiting this, or staying at the excellent Casa Nostra Hostel (check it out and book it here) it would be a great lunch spot.
Lao Omelette at Mr Lair’s
(location)
Sometimes you just stumble upon something great without even meaning too. One day we had left lunch a little late and were wandering around Luang Prabang’s Mekong riverside looking for a cheap delicious meal. It was here we stumbled across Mr Lair and his omelette stand. From the road it looks like just a tarpaulin topped stall, but behind the makeshift kitchen Mr Lair has a secret dining room overlooking the Mekong River.
Lao omelette doesn’t sound like the most exciting of dishes, but honestly it was one of our favourite things we ate in the whole of Luang Prabang.
Mr Lair’s omelette was fried until crispy on all sides, folded over and then stuffed like a sandwich, and we mean really stuffed! Beansprouts, sliced pork, spring onions and cabbage were all jammed inside and fried into the omelette. This crispy, cacophony of textures was completed by a small bowl of fiery chillies, crushed peanuts and sweet fish sauce which was served alongside. We would smash up a piece of the omelette, dip into the sauce and devour!
Seriously, these omelettes were sooo good, don’t miss them on your trip to Luang Prabang.
Tim Papaya Salad
(location)
Grilled meat and papaya salad is a delicious staple of Laotian cuisine. A particularly great example of this can be found at Tim’s Papaya Salad Restaurant on a picturesque side street in the heart of the historic Old Quarter.
The restaurant has a small menu of meats, sausages and salads. We can highly recommend their spicy papaya salad served alongside grilled chicken and sticky rice. The salad is unique and very spicy, with hunks of bamboo, thick ribbons of papaya and a rich, spicy, fermented dressing. It was the perfect accompaniment to the juicy grilled chicken, cutting through and providing a citrussy kick! Don’t worry if you can’t handle your spice, you can ask for it without chilli.
There is seating inside the restaurant but for the best table, head across the road and sit under a parasol on the concrete tables outside Wat Nong Sikhounmuang temple.
Banh Mi Stalls in the Old Quarter
Dotted all along the main market road of Luang Prabang’s Old Quarter are small street-side stalls and stands serving the backpacker favourite of Banh Mi. A leftover from the French colonial era, the Laotian’s have taken the humble baguette and have made it all their own. What’s not to love about the “best sandwich in the world”?
You can get endless varieties of this cheap and simple baguette, but we are always drawn to the crispy pork banh mi. You can get meat, egg, vegetarian or even vegan combinations.
You can get these anywhere along the high street for very little cash and they make an excellent meal on the go for those exploring Luang Prabang.
Rice and Curry from 89 Check-In
(location)
If you’re on a backpacking budget and looking for a super cheap, filling and delicious lunch look no further than rice and curry. Available all throughout Asia, rice and curry is a perennial favourite for backpackers in the know. Available in endless varieties and combinations these buffet style curry restaurants truly are one of our favourite ways to eat whilst travelling. You get to try loads of different dishes and get a true taste of the local food without the filter chefs will apply when cooking for foreigners.
Luang Prabang has an excellent rice and curry joint - 89 Check-In. A heaping plate of rice completed with any number of delicious curries on top was a meal we discovered far too late in our latest Luang Prabang adventure. Everything was fantastic but our favourites were the red pork curry completed with bamboo shoots and a creamy, sweet pumpkin curry.
There’s always so much choice at a rice and curry buffet!
This rice and curry stall was extremely cheap and well worth a visit even for those not on a strict backpacking budget.
For a quick digestif after your rice and curry feast, head a few doors down the road to the excellent Coffee Express.
For more information on where to find the best coffee in Luang Prabang, check out our coffee guide here.
The Best Places for Dinner in Luang Prabang
Market Street Food Feasts - Luang Prabang’s Daily Night Market
(location)
Come the evening, Luang Prabang’s Night Market absolutely dominates the historic heart of the city. Down the whole of the Old Quarter’s central road, hundreds of stalls unfurl and set up shop.
The stalls along the central street sell souvenirs, clothes and traditional Laotian handicrafts. If you’re after a street food feast, you will need to go to the southern end of the night market where a large food court sprawls out into the square and down the surrounding alleyways.
After the sun sets, this street food court is where you’ll find the majority of travellers in Luang Prabang. The stalls around the night market square sell everything from Laotian stir-fries to wontons, crepes and Korean fried chicken. It is a meeting of all the best street food that Laos and SE Asia can offer! If you’re backpacking, grab a group from the hostel and assemble yourself a sharing street food feast!
The food court in the square is ringed with vendors and bars with a large seating area in the centre. A stage provides live music and entertainment on weekends. There is a toilet off to the left hand side of the square (2000 kip charge).
Our top recommendation for night market munchings isn’t actually in the main square. Down a nearby alleyway, (find it on a map here), lies a treasure trove of local Laotian street food. Near the top of the alley you’ll find our favourite dessert in Laos, crispy, chewy, ufo shaped coconut pancakes. Super cheap and served in a banana leaf cup, these make for a perfect dessert after you’ve had your fill at the market.
The best tasty treasures lie deeper down the alleyway. The stall we loved the most didn’t have a name but was opposite the hotpot restaurant. A long trestle table is covered in banana leaves and on top of this, is a bouquet of skewers of grilled meats, fish and sausages. It’s a protein paradise! You just select the skewers you want and they toss them back onto the hot coals of a barbeque to caramelise, crisp and warm back up. Nextdoor you can order a spicy fresh papaya salad and sticky rice to go with your meaty (or fishy) feast.
There’s so many meats on offer in the Night Market!
This was one of our favourite meals in the whole of Southeast Asia. We would greedily order a set of grilled chicken wings, a skewer full of juicy pork belly alongside steaming sticky rice and zingy, spicy som tam salad. It was and is the perfect blend of flavours and textures. Grilled, juicy meat, crunchy papaya and nutty sticky rice all came together in our mouths as a symphony of texture and flavour, it was damn near the perfect bite!
If you order this meal, it’s purely a hands on dish, no cutlery, just your fingers and sticky rice to scoop the salad and tear apart the meat. Our pro tip: Bring wet wipes!
Further down the same alley you can find some great curry stalls as well as fruit shakes and salad stands. Every stall will sell water, soft drinks and Beer Laos.
Stir Fries at Ajam Mora
(location)
If you’re looking for a slightly more formal meal but still want to be in the heart of Luang Prabang’s Night Market, head down our favourite alley (see above) and go to Ajam Mora Restaurant.
Ajam Mora serves every kind of stir-fry, spring rolls, noodle soups as well as whole baked fish, curries and vegetables. We can especially recommend their fried rice with pork topped with an extra crispy fried egg. Slightly smokey from the wok with a gooey egg coating every grain of rice, it was exactly as satisfying as a proper fried rice should be.
Ajam Mora is alway busy with a lively crowd of backpackers, locals and other travellers, but the service is quick and efficient so you shouldn’t have to wait long for a seat.
As backpackers you really can’t go wrong with a plate of fried rice!
Fried Rice and Noodles at Atsalin
(location)
Speaking of stir-fries… you can find what may have been our favourite stir-fry restaurant a short walk from Luang Prabang’s Night Market. You will know you’re in the right place when you can see two enormous jet engine sized fans pumping out delicious wok smoke onto the street.
Atsalin Restaurant is a no frills, frenetic hub of stir-fried greatness. All the usual favourites are on the menu and you can’t go wrong no matter what you order. Our standard sharing set was fried rice (deliciously wok smoked) alongside spicy yellow fried noodles and a steaming plate of garlicky, oyster sauce laden morning glory. Cheap, tasty and extremely addictive we have frequently found ourselves back at Atsalin restaurant.
Local Wonton Noodles
(location) - No proper listing but it is around here!
Opposite the wok smoke of Atsalin, we found an amazing wonton and char-siu pork noodle soup joint. Sometimes you just need that comforting bowl of wonton-y goodness. Red pork noodle soups have supported us and comforted us throughout the whole of SE Asia. From the busy streets of Kuala Lumpur to small villages of rural Thailand, Chinese style wonton noodle soup is available everywhere and is a heart-warming, favourite for us long-term backpackers.
Luang Prabang’s offering in the wonton arena has no name on Google Maps, but don’t let that put you off. This fantastic, humble restaurant was always full of locals slurping down on bowls of noodles. Their wonton and char-siu bowl were incredibly generous. Piled high with juicy dumplings and delicious slices of marinated sweet red pork, it felt like a never-ending bowl of goodness. The firm noodles, rich broth and delicious toppings made for an excellent dinner or lunch, just make sure you go hungry!
Elegant Curries at Cafe Toui
(location)
If you’re looking for an authentic, delicious, sit down Laotian meal we cannot recommend Cafe Toui enough. The restaurant has a small, paired back menu of Laotian favourites. A little bit more expensive than some of the other options on this list, Cafe Toui has the advantage of being set in a beautiful building with a small intimate dining room.
The restaurant is perfect for a quieter, cosy (or even romantic) dinner. It is set just off and round the corner from the northern tail end of the busy Night Market.
The food was fantastic. We ordered the creamy pumpkin curry and a ginger spiced stir-fried fish. It was cooked freshly for us and tasted divine. The lightly spiced coconut and pumpkin curry was a brilliant counterpoint to the fresh, ginger-laden fish. The restaurant also offers beers, spirits and a selection of French wines.
The restaurant is open for both lunch and dinner. We had an excellent final lunch here on one of our earlier trips.
Classy Laotian Cuisine at Tamarind
(location)
Tamarind Restaurant is an absolute must for those who really want to try a variety of Laotian dishes. Tamarind offers a large selection of set menus that let you sample lots of different traditional dishes, all from the comfort of a pretty and elegant dining room overlooking the Nam Khan River.
We really enjoyed our meal there, especially the spicy buffalo sausage and deep fried aubergines. The food was fantastic and presented in a way which would appeal to even the most sceptical of culinary explorers. Tamarind is more expensive than street food from the market but that is to be expected given the menu, dining room and service. It is still very reasonably priced considering the quality and variety of the menu.
Tamarind also offers what might be Luang Prabang’s most popular cooking class. So if you want to really deep dive into Laotian food and learn how to bring some of it home, a meal and a class in Tamarind would be a great way to start.
Wood-Fired Pizza at Popolo
(location)
Okay, this one may be the upper bounds of a budget friendly backpacking meal, but if you’re looking for one meal to treat yourself to whilst in Luang Prabang, it has to be Popolo.
You can’t miss Popolo’s colourful exterior!
Set in a gorgeous colourful building on a quiet side street, Popolo serves what may be the best pizza we have eaten outside of Italy! The restaurant had come highly recommended to us, its praises being sung from Vang Vieng to Nong Khiaw by fellow travellers. They were not wrong!
Popolo pizzas are simply amazing! Thin, crispy, bases are topped with the most luxurious ingredients both imported and local. Our stand out pizza was the ‘French Kiss’. This may be our favourite pizza ever, we’re not exaggerating! Creamy Camembert is spiked with pickled apples and sweet caramelised onions all coming together into something so delicious it should probably be illegal!
The ‘French Kiss’ and the ‘Popolare’ pizza are both delicious!
Another standout dish is the burrata starter. A generous ball of local buffalo milk burrata is topped with sliced spring onions, cherry tomatoes and an aniseed laced holy-basil pesto. As you cut into the burrata it literally liquefied into a luxurious cream.
Popolo has a full menu of pizza’s, pastas and gorgeous looking salads. We always admired other peoples plates of pasta and bowls of salad but couldn’t resist ordering pizza’s for ourselves! If you indulge in their pasta let us know in the comments how it is!
As we have said, Popolo is definitely a ‘treat yourself’ meal for those on a long term travel or backpacking budget. However, it really isn’t an overly expensive meal and whilst you can always eat cheaply in Laos, it really is worth treating yourself sometimes. Pizzas range from 145,000 to 250,000 kip so far cheaper than you would find back home! Don’t deny yourself the pleasure just to save yourself a pound.
Other Restaurants - Fine Dining in Luang Prabang
If you are aware of the food scene in Luang Prabang you’ll notice that this list is missing some very famous options. Manda De Laos, Gaspard and L’Elephant are all amazing places to eat, but this list is more about the places you might not have heard of.
For those not on a backpacking budget or if you want to really push the boat out with a special meal, make sure you read our guide to “Luxurious Living in Luang Prabang”:
Whatever cuisine you’re looking for, Luang Prabang can provide. There are so many more places to eat than we could ever mention. This list doesn’t include the fantastic Indian or Sri Lankan restaurants or even the iconic French fare available in the city. Our only advice for eating in Luang Prabang is to go hungry and eat as much as you can in as many places as possible!
Thanks for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
Rice cakes are a popular Laotian snack!
You’ll never know what you’ll find on the streets of Luang Prabang!
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Sometime you need a bit of luxury in your life. Luckily the UNESCO World Heritage city of Luang Prabang has plenty to offer for those seeking something sumptuous. Follow us as we depart from our regular budget backpacking and indulge in the high end staying at a fantastic hotel and eating at the bougiest of bistros.