Just around the corner from the perpetually crowded Ha’s Snack Bar on Broome Street, chefs Sadie Mae Burns and Anthony Ha have quietly opened Bistrot Ha, a twelve-table restaurant signaling a new phase for the acclaimed duo. The opening, reported by The New Yorker, marks a deliberate expansion from the intensely popular, but deliberately limited, confines of their first brick-and-mortar establishment.
Ha and Burns first gained attention with their pop-up, Ha’s Đăc Biệt, which ran for six years and even included a residency in Paris, as noted by Time Out. The success of the pop-up led to the December 2025 launch of Ha’s Snack Bar, a tiny Lower East Side spot that quickly became a sensation. However, from the beginning, the Snack Bar was conceived as a stepping stone. “They were clear that the Snack Bar was just a first step on their brick-and-mortar journey,” writes Helen Rosner in The New Yorker, “not their ‘real’ restaurant…but a staging ground.”
Bistrot Ha offers a more expansive dining experience than its predecessor. While Ha’s Snack Bar operated with a minimal kitchen setup – essentially a hot plate and an electric oven – the bistro boasts a fully equipped kitchen, allowing Ha and Burns to employ a wider range of cooking techniques. The new space also features a full bar and, notably, a coat check, amenities absent at the Snack Bar. The menu continues to draw inspiration from Vietnamese cuisine, infused with French and other international influences, but the larger space allows for a more relaxed pace and a broader exploration of flavors, foregrounding Vietnamese herbs and organ meats, according to Rosner.
The relationship between the two restaurants, Burns and Ha have suggested, is intentional. As described in Interview Magazine, the two spaces function somewhat like Parisian restaurants with accompanying caves à vin – a more casual wine bar often sharing the same kitchen. Ha’s Snack Bar remains focused on quick, inventive bites, while Bistrot Ha provides a more leisurely, full-service dining experience.
The opening of Bistrot Ha comes after a period of intense operate for Burns and Ha, who are reportedly preparing to open a second restaurant within the next calendar year, tentatively named Bistrot Ha. Reservations for the new bistro are already proving difficult to secure, mirroring the immediate demand that greeted Ha’s Snack Bar upon its debut. The chefs have not yet commented on the timeline for their next project, leaving the future direction of their expanding culinary empire uncertain.
