It’s easy to look at the lines that snake down Barrack Street and take Le Vietnam’s success for granted. But when DJ and Emily Lee opened more than a decade ago, putting anything but cold-cuts into a banh mi was rare for Perth.

“You know, back then there was only banh mi available at Asian convenience stores, that were ready-made and sat on the shelves from morning to afternoon,” says DJ. “There was one, or maybe two types [of banh mi]. Sometimes you were lucky and you could ask for chilli or no chilli, but that was pretty much it.”

Since opening in 2014, Le Vietnam has been a pinnacle of Perth’s banh mi scene. From 10am each morning, the Lees satiate the appetites of tradies, sunburnt tourists, and frantic office workers alike while churning out corporate catering orders for the big-money end of town.

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While the duo have been crowned the king and queen of banh mi in Perth, they certainly weren’t the first to introduce banh mi. That’s a title DJ reserves for those he calls “the OGs” – the aunties and uncles from the Vietnamese community who have run tuckshops, grocers and restaurants in the community for decades.

And although DJ respects the traditions of the OGs, whose banh mi fed him throughout his childhood, he wasn’t looking to replicate the same traditions when opening Le Vietnam. “Yes, we wanted to respect the traditions,” he says, noting the pork banh mi that’s a staple on the menu, “but why can’t there be other options too?”

Le Vietnam explores the answers to that question in a daring and delicious fashion. There’s the spicy buffalo chicken (think American-style diner heat), a guacamole cream chicken banh mi, and the “4 Little Pigs”, which riffs off the typical pork cold-cut banh mi, with pork cooked several ways: pulled, roasted and grilled, topped with crackling.

These creative fillings are sometimes inspired by DJ’s travels. In addition to being named DJ, he worked as a DJ touring the world. In each city he’d make it a mission to try a new banh mi. He would talk to chefs and friends, who’d take him to their favourite haunts, and studiously take notes on baking the best (sturdy but fluffy) buns and making a smooth pate.

When DJ moved back to Perth he wanted to try something different. Back then, pork was king – bringing in anything else was sacrilegious. And wanting to be a banh mi specialist? Making each fresh and to order? Well, that was sheer stupidity. Forget it. That was the conventional wisdom passed to DJ from the well-meaning OGs whose restaurants featured banh mi as a footnote to an expansive menu. They told him his plans were a surefire ticket to bankruptcy, particularly in a business with notoriously skinny margins where the conti reigned supreme.

Nevertheless, he persisted, and after his rolls passed the rigorous testing standards of the family dinner table, he knew he had something worth pursuing. To this day, nothing hits the Le Vietnam menu unless it’s met with approval from the Lees’ myriad aunts, uncles and cousins who scrutinise every iteration.

The vegan options – true vegan alternatives like Peking tofu and grilled “lamb” (made of mushroom) – are a nod to DJ’s childhood when his mum would prepare vegan food on full moons for dinner.

Eventually DJ won the approval of the OGs and, while sentiment on what is or isn’t a banh mi has changed, he notes that discussions about a fair price for banh mi (and East and Southeast Asian food in general) still lag behind. The banh mi has been made a symbol of this debate across the country. DJ shares the opinion of many fellow chefs saying the cost is a reflection of produce, labour and time, which should be valued as equally as, say, Italian cuisine, but also believes that tourism and social media have contributed to the idea that Asian food should be “cheap”.

“People have a view that Vietnamese food and Asian food is cheap purely because they had a char kway teow in Malaysia or Southeast Asia that was like a dollar… or they come back from holiday and say ‘I got a banh mi in Vietnam for a few dollars’,” DJ says. “I want to educate people.”

DJ’s work ethic alone should merit a higher price tag: he wakes up before 5am to source Margaret River beef and Linley Valley pork, and to make bread and sauces in-house “to make sure it’s right”.

DJ‘s story is more than the simple trope of diaspora child sticking it to the traditions of the old country. It’s a reflection of how food naturally evolves in a community.

Le Vietnam
80 Barrack St, Perth WA 6000
(08) 6114 8038

@levietnamcafe