Back
Food
Audemars Piguet, Love, New York

Yen Vo and Jimmy Ly First Bonded over Beignets

Published on 3 minutes read
Food
Audemars Piguet, Love, New York
Words by Ella Quittner
"Any guy who is willing to go through all this trouble, just for a date? We can go on a date."

Yen Vo and Jimmy Ly began with the good kind of lie. They met the way lots of couples used to meet: at a bar. Vo had moved to New York City from Houston, Texas and as she lamented to Ly, she couldn’t find anything to eat. At least, nothing that reminded her of what she ate growing up, mostly in Mississippi, where her dad had worked in the shrimping business. She missed thịt kho, a dish of tender, caramelized pork belly and whole eggs. She missed Vietnamese coffee. And most of all, she told him, she really missed beignets.

That turned out to be no problem, Ly explained. It just so happened that he made a stellar beignet. At the time he worked for his parents, who owned Paris Sandwich on Green Street, to which regulars flocked for the banh mi baguette on homemade bread Ly had learned to make in France. On a day when the restaurant was closed, Ly invited Vo by for his famous beignets. He made dough with care, rolled it out, and tossed each square of pâte à choux into hot oil. “The moment he threw them into the fryer, I realized he’d never made a beignet before,” said Vo. “They didn’t puff up.” Still, the ploy worked: "Any guy who is willing to go through all this trouble, just for a date? We can go on a date."

They were married five years later. Their house of Southern Vietnamese cuisine, Madame Vo, opened its doors a month after their wedding. (Ly had signed the lease without telling Vo, some weeks before the nuptials.) They wrote the menu based on the recipes they adored most from the women in each of their lives. The pho nam, which comes to the table at Madame Vo with a hulking, cushiony short rib protruding from its glassy broth, is a style of the soup from the region of Vietnam where Ly’s mother was born. But the short rib came from Vo’s side of the family. "The first time I had a bowl of pho at her mom’s house, she busted out a short rib. I was sitting there like, ‘Damn, this is amazing,” said Ly.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Instagram (@instagram)

In 2022, the couple opened Monsieur Vo, their ode to ăn nhậu, which as Vo put it, is “dads’ culture in Vietnam: people come over and eat and drink for hours, all day long.”

Now, Vo and Ly have become masters of time. Just last month, the New York City restaurateurs achieved the nearly impossible: they hosted Thanksgiving for 14, featuring not only a 45-day dry aged steak but also braised five spice oxtail, in the middle of a frenetic work week for their East Village two restaurants, and managed to make it to Juqi, a peking duck spot in Queens after their kids’ swim lessons nearby, all without losing their minds.

It helps that Ly and Vo collect timepieces. It’s been an obsession for Ly since, as a boy in Queens, he fell for a watch: a neon green G-Shock that was later confiscated by his first grade teacher, for errant beeping. The first thing he noticed about Vo the night they met — even before her appetite — was her Cartier Tank. One of her favorite pieces in her collection today is an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Carolina Bucci collaboration watch, with rainbow iridescence.

When they aren’t scouting limited editions, Ly and Vo spend any precious free time traveling for food. On a recent trip to Paris, they managed to sneak in caviar and baked potatoes after a full-day wedding on a boat, and, then next morning, three different croissants.

"We love to eat," says Vo. And that, after all of these years, is the truth.

Share this article

email whatsapp

Stories you might like

All stories
Ming Lee Simmons Through Sue Kwon's Lens
New York

Ming Lee Simmons Through Sue Kwon's Lens

Published on
Leandra Medine Keeps It Super Simple
Keep It Super Simple

Leandra Medine Keeps It Super Simple

Published on
The New Parent’s Guide to Accessorizing
Family

The New Parent’s Guide to Accessorizing

Published on
All stories