Dalat Edensee Lake Resort

The Room

Dalat Edensee Lake Resort sits on the north shore of Tuyen Lam Lake, a fifteen-minute drive from the Dalat town centre. The property is European-run, Alpine in its architecture, with a main dining room and a lakeside terrace that projects over the water. The terrace is the table — on a clear evening with the sun setting behind the pine-fringed hills, the view over the lake is the kind of scene that stops conversation.

The menu is international fine dining — steaks, rack of lamb, seafood, risottos, a small tasting menu of local-ingredient dishes. Execution is reliable rather than transcendent, but the setting does the heavy lifting and the kitchen knows it. The most-ordered dishes are the Dalat beef tenderloin, the grilled lake fish, and the cheese course using imported European cheeses that are unusually rare in provincial Vietnam.

The wine list is broad — around 120 labels, mostly French and Italian, with a small Chilean and Australian section. Pricing is fair for a resort. The house aperitif is a Dalat-strawberry spritz that is better than it sounds.

Dinner runs $60 to $90 per head with wine. Reservations are essential and should be made through the resort; non-guests are welcome and are the majority of the clientele on weekends. Sunset table bookings should be made for 6pm in summer, 5pm in winter.