Helen Nguyen

Helen Nguyen is the chef and owner of Saigon Social on the Lower East Side and Cô Lạc in the East Village. A first-generation Vietnamese American raised in Seattle, she learned the cooking of Central Vietnam in her mother's kitchen, left a career in real estate for New York, trained for three years on Restaurant Daniel's catering and private-events team and graduated from the Institute of Culinary Education in 2017.

She opened Saigon Social in March 2020, days before the city shut down, and cooked for frontline workers and, with Heart of Dinner, for elderly New Yorkers; after it began full dine-in service in 2022 it earned a two-star New York Times review and she was named a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: New York State. In spring 2026 she opened Cô Lạc on East Fourth Street, named for her mother, Lạc, with a menu built on recipes from Quy Nhơn, the coastal Central Vietnam city where her family has fished for six generations. She is a recurring guest judge on Food Network's Beat Bobby Flay.