At The Anam Cam Ranh, a Vietnamese-run luxury hotel on Vietnam’s southern coast, guests can experience the country's culinary history from various perspectives. Traditional ingredients, French cooking techniques, and time-honored recipes provide a glimpse into the evolution of Vietnamese cuisine.

French Influences in Vietnamese Cuisine

From 1858 to 1954, Vietnam was a French colony. This period left its mark on Vietnamese cuisine. The country’s bakery and café culture, as well as the aforementioned bánh mì, exemplify Vietnam's unique development of these influences: Originally imported from France, the baguette evolved into the popular Vietnamese street food classic, which varies by region in terms of fillings and preparation methods.

At The Colonial at The Anam Cam Ranh, the historical connection is reimagined in a modern way. Executive Chef Duy Anh Nguyen pairs classic French techniques with Vietnamese ingredients. His six-course tasting menu features beef tartare, traditional fish sauce, ST25 fragrant rice with corn and green beans, and other local ingredients.

However, Vietnam's culinary history isn’t limited to fine dining at The Anam Cam Ranh. Just a few steps away, the focus is on dishes whose recipes have been passed down through the generations.

Culinary knowledge that is passed down

“Mama Cooking” at a Luxury Resort

The Anam Cam Ranh’s second restaurant, Lang Viet, specializes in dishes from various regions of Vietnam, from north to south. Every Thursday evening, this approach takes on a particularly personal touch with the “Mama’s Cooking” event: Five mothers from The Anam team take over the kitchen and prepare traditional Vietnamese home-style dishes using original, time-honored recipes.

Cook on your own, experiment, learn

For guests at The Anam Cam Ranh, exploring Vietnamese cuisine means more than just tasting the food. The resort's cooking classes start with a morning visit to a local market. Afterward, participants work alongside the kitchen team to prepare selected Vietnamese dishes step by step.

The market visit allows participants to experience not only the recipes and final dishes, but also the origins of the ingredients. Some of these ingredients come from the resort’s own farm, which guests are also welcome to visit. Fruit, vegetables, and herbs are grown there according to organic principles. Additionally, the kitchen states that it gives preference to producers from the surrounding region and avoids imported staple foods whenever possible.

Side note: Sustainability initiatives at The Anam Cam Ranh

Concrete measures to ensure the responsible use of resources are also implemented outside the kitchen. Some of the electricity comes from the resort’s own solar panels. Drinking water is treated on the premises and bottled in glass bottles that are cleaned and refilled on site. Rainwater is collected and used to irrigate the approximately twelve-hectare garden complex.

From the Market to the Sea: Fish and Seafood in Mui Ne

A look at The Anam Mui Ne, the sister resort located about 200 kilometers south, shows just how differently the question of food sourcing can be answered within Vietnam. It is located on the coast of Phan Thiet, a region where fishing has always been an integral part of daily life. Even though fish and seafood play an important role in Vietnamese cuisine, preparation methods and the types of fish available vary by region.

In addition to the high-quality cuisine served in the restaurant, the Mui Ne resort also offers its guests cooking classes. During them, the connection to the sea becomes immediately apparent. First, guests visit a nearby fishing port, then a market. There, they select the day’s catch and other ingredients before returning to the hotel to cook with the kitchen team.

Through this experience, guests learn that paying close attention to the origin of food is particularly important when it comes to fish and seafood. After all, the resort’s proximity to the sea says nothing about how responsibly a product was produced or caught. The species, origin, and method of catch or production are all crucial factors in determining a product's classification.

Street food from Phan Thiet

Since 2026, The Anam Mui Ne has offered Vietnamese street food twice a week at live food stations on the beach lawn as part of its "Vietnamese Market Favorites" series. The menu features local specialties from Phan Thiet. Signs at each station provide guests with more information about the dishes.

Cuisine as a Gateway to an Authentic Experience of Vietnam

Our detour to Mui Ne brings us back to the idea that sparked this culinary journey in Cam Ranh—that Vietnamese cuisine cannot be described or experienced as a single national cuisine. History and regional traditions shape what ends up on the plate, and each new location within the country offers a different culinary perspective.

At The Anam Cam Ranh, this exploration ranges from French influences and traditional Vietnamese recipes to cultivating their own ingredients. The Anam Mui Ne complements this with a fishing port, a market, and specialties from Phan Thiet.

About The Anam Cam Ranh

The Anam Cam Ranh, an independently managed five-star Vietnamese resort, is located directly on Long Beach in Cam Ranh Bay. The resort encompasses approximately twelve hectares of tropical gardens with about 3,000 palm trees, and its architecture and design incorporate elements of the Indochinese style as well as Vietnamese craftsmanship. The Anam Cam Ranh collaborates closely with local businesses and artisans and, through the Anam Foundation, supports social and environmental projects in the region and beyond.

About The Anam Mui Ne

With The Anam Mui Ne, the Vietnamese hotel group The Anam opened its second property in 2023. The 127-room and -suite resort is located directly on Mui Ne Beach in Lam Dong Province. It includes two restaurants, a bar, several pools, and a spa with treatment rooms, a sauna, and a steam room. The resort places a strong emphasis on Vietnamese cuisine and culture, which guests can experience through regional dishes and on-site activities. Since 2026, both The Anam Group hotels have been part of the Green Pearls® network.

In collaboration with local authorities, the foundation plans to identify schools, public spaces, and residential areas with few trees, among other places. The newly planted trees are intended to provide shade in schoolyards and public spaces. Depending on the location and species of the trees, they can also improve air quality. The first projects are planned for communities surrounding the two Green Pearls® partner hotels, The Anam Cam Ranh and The Anam Mui Ne. The program will expand to other regions of Vietnam at a later date.

The foundation is backed by The Anam Group, which is led by its founder and chairman, Pham Van Hien. The company donates a portion of its annual profits to the foundation, which has funded various local projects and relief efforts for years. In addition to "Anam Green Life," these projects include social support and disaster relief. Most recently, the foundation provided 240 million VND for the renovation or construction of two houses for families in need in Cam Lam, near The Anam Cam Ranh.

Hotels as a gateway and link to the region

When choosing a hotel or vacation rental, travelers now look for more than just comfort and a place to sleep; they also want a sense of place and authenticity. The desire to fully immerse oneself in a destination is increasingly influencing travel decisions. Architecture deeply rooted in local conditions and respectful of the landscape lays the foundation for such an experience.

However, a regional architectural style has more than just atmospheric implications; it also results in measurable ecological benefits. Using local materials, such as natural stone or wood, shortens transportation distances and reduces emissions from logistics. Involving local craft businesses provides site-specific knowledge and strengthens local economic cycles. And architects who incorporate a site’s topography, climate, and vegetation into their designs create buildings that require fewer technical compensations, such as cooling, heating, or maintenance:

• Natural shading instead of permanent cooling

• Wall thicknesses that store heat rather than heating systems that have to compensate 

• Traditional roof structures that have been optimized over centuries to suit the local climate conditions

This technical intelligence embedded in the design is becoming increasingly relevant in today's context of decarbonization and resource conservation.

Architecture forms the foundation of a responsible hospitality industry

In this sense, the Green Pearls® partners do not view architecture (merely) as a matter of style, but rather as the structural foundation of responsible business practices. The following examples, from the South Tyrolean Alps to the southern coast of Sicily, the Black Forest, and a Croatian island, illustrate what this means in concrete, individual terms.

At the heart of brand identity

Since 1810, the Sanoner family has run the ADLER Spa Resorts & Lodges in accordance with this philosophy, now in its sixth and seventh generations. What began as an inn in St. Ulrich, South Tyrol, has grown to include seven properties stretching from the Dolomite high plateau to the southern coast of Sicily, all of which feature landscape-inspired architecture and a deep connection to nature, among other things.

A particularly striking example of this approach is the ADLER Ritten. Located in a forest clearing on the South Tyrolean high plateau, the complex comprises a main building, outbuildings, and freestanding chalets that blend almost effortlessly into their surroundings. Rather than imposing itself on the landscape, the lodge emphasizes subtle integration, making use of the site's natural layout. Dark wooden facades and regional materials define its appearance. Untreated spruce and larch wood were used for the facades, and oak floors inside convey warmth and quality. Artfully designed wooden panels in the lobby add distinctive accents. This was achieved by planing individual boards against the grain to create a relief-like, almost sculptural surface.

The black wooden cladding of the buildings ensures that the architecture blends seamlessly with the forest landscape. Rather than following an international design concept or imported aesthetic, the design speaks the language of the place. Its proportions, materials, and scale draw inspiration from a cultural landscape shaped by centuries of South Tyrol’s rural building traditions. Owners Andreas and Klaus Sanoner designed the ADLER Ritten in collaboration with South Tyrolean architect Hugo Demetz. Their concept shows how contemporary architecture can have a strong impact through restraint and connection to the local context.

In July 2022, the ADLER Sicilia opened on the southern coast of Sicily. It is the Collection’s first Mediterranean property and its first seaside resort. The complex sits on a kilometer-long pristine beach near the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, right next to the WWF nature reserve Riserva Torre Salsa. The cedar wood and glass architecture is built on a hill and seamlessly integrated into the landscape. In total, the resort has 90 guest rooms with green roofs. Its interior design primarily features regional materials, such as tuff. The walls are plastered with "Terracruda," a red clay from Mount Etna that helps maintain a stable indoor climate thanks to its moisture-regulating properties.

Restraint as a guiding principle

The Hotel Weihrerhof, located directly on Lake Wolfsgruben in Ritten, blends deliberately into its surroundings. Among other features, the building boasts the traditional Ritten roof shape, a design that has been characteristic of the high plateau and its landscape for generations. "We build with great restraint: as much as necessary, but as little as possible," says host Klaus Pichler, describing this approach. The seven-hectare property encompasses three hectares of meadows that have not been fertilized or cultivated for over twenty years.

Built on stilts above Brixen, the Hotel My Arbor evokes the tall trees in the surrounding forest while preserving a large portion of the existing tree population. Wooden facades and natural materials reflect South Tyrol’s mountain forest landscape, creating an authentic atmosphere inside and out.

The Naturresort Gerbehof, located on Lake Constance, also connects with its surroundings through its choice of materials. The stones in the spa area come from the spot where the Rhine flows into Lake Constance. The wood used for the furniture and furnishings comes from the resort’s own forest and was handcrafted on site. No cross-continental transport; no anonymous supply chains.

In turn, the Summit Lodges in Tyrol carefully integrate their natural log cabins into the hillside by building stone walls directly from the excavated material. What was dug up was reused. The APIPURA hotel rinner in South Tyrol takes it a step further. During the renovation, clay soil was excavated and reused to create earthen pyramids in the hotel hallways. The hotel also features local Swiss stone pine and larch wood, regional Plima stone in the stairwell, and hay bales as decorative elements. Walking through the hotel is like walking through the region itself.

Integration, not staging

Some buildings showcase nature, while others allow it to set the tone. The key question is how architecture can take a back seat, incorporate regional materials and traditional building methods, and become part of its surroundings instead of overpowering them.

"Authenticity" is an overused buzzword in most cases. However, for the two luxury resorts operated by the independent Vietnamese hotel group The Anam, there is hardly a more fitting description. The architecture of the two five-star resorts, one on the Cam Ranh Peninsula and the other in Mui Ne in southern Vietnam, deliberately and consistently draws on regional building traditions. Guests will find traditional roof shapes and patterned tiles crafted by artisans from across the country, as well as artwork and décor reflecting a close connection to the resorts' respective regions. During construction, care was also taken to ensure the hotels would not tower over the surrounding natural landscape. The villas and buildings of The Anam Cam Ranh are nestled in a garden with over 3,000 palm trees, and The Anam Mui Ne clings to the hills that slope down toward the beach like a cascade.

The LA VIMEA Vegan Hotel is nestled in a park-like garden in the heart of an Alpine valley in South Tyrol. The natural garden and pond are more than just decorative features; they are part of the hotel’s living environment. Guests can swim in the natural pond among water lilies. The terrace roof is completely covered with greenery, transforming it into a garden in its own right. At the Green Spa Resort Stanglwirt in the Lower Inn Valley, the surrounding Alpine landscape of the Wilder Kaiser sets the standard. The organic building philosophy combines traditional Tyrolean architecture with the latest insights into resource-efficient construction: the hotel bar features ancient hewn timber, wooden truss ceilings replace steel structures, the interiors are made of local Swiss stone pine, and wooden bricks are bound with lime mortar instead of cement. What feels like natural Tyrolean hospitality is the result of consistent decisions regarding construction, materials, and operations.

The Relais del Maro on the Ligurian Riviera, the Naturhotel Outside in East Tyrol, and the Hotel Das Rübezahl in the Allgäu all share a similar philosophy: architecture is seen as an extension of the landscape. The Relais del Maro uses organic, natural building materials and traditional and, in some cases, even ancient techniques. The other two properties rely on regional materials, such as wood, stone, and natural fabrics, that define their architectural traditions. A defining feature of all three is their rejection of spectacular, signature architecture in favor of a restrained, site-specific design language. The interiors also remain true to this philosophy. Natural colors, materials, and regional references create seamless transitions between the indoors and outdoors, ensuring that nature becomes an integral part of the guest experience rather than a mere backdrop.

The location determines the form

The OLM Nature Escape in Tauferer Ahrntal, which opened in 2023, shows that tradition and modernity are not mutually exclusive. The modern building's circular shape is unusual, yet its name, Alm, comes from the South Tyrolean dialect. The building's circular shape alludes to the endless cycle of time but also to the millstones of the mills that once operated there. Constructed using regional materials, the building features larch wood, ample glass, and natural materials. All of its energy comes from its own photovoltaic systems and geothermal probes, supplemented by hydropower. Since its opening, the building has been certified to the GSTC standard.

The SCHWARZWALD PANORAMA in Bad Herrenalb is taking a related yet distinct approach. The Circular Living concept, which will be implemented throughout the entire building step by step, draws on the region’s existing resources and the principles of circular construction and interior design. The Black Forest is integrated into the project through the choice of materials and craftsmanship. Each design detail was evaluated based on recyclability, durability, and health and safety criteria. The materials used can be integrated into existing material cycles, and their origin and environmental impact are traceable. However, the connection to the local area is reflected not only in the choice of materials, but also in the design implementation. The Circular Living rooms were designed in collaboration with Black Forest hotel interior designer FRITZ SCHLECHT | SHL.

The Hotel Korinjak on the Croatian island of Iž was built in the 1960s when energy efficiency and sustainable construction were not integral to architectural planning. Nevertheless, the building blends seamlessly into the landscape today. With just two stories, an unobtrusive main building, and a clear, functional structure, the hotel does not overwhelm its surroundings. It neither towers over the coastline nor dominates the island’s characteristic landscape of pine trees, natural stone, and sea. Instead blending into the topography and scale of the site.

What architecture achieves when it takes a back seat

Why is all of this relevant? It is not because regional architectural traditions are more beautiful; it is because they have consequences that extend far beyond aesthetics. Using local materials means shorter transport distances and lower emissions. Local craftsmen ensure the transfer of knowledge. Traditional roof shapes and wall constructions have been tested by the climate and optimized over centuries for the specific conditions in which a building will stand.

And architecture creates a true sense of identity. When you arrive at a house that could be built anywhere, you don't know where you are. A building that reflects its location conveys a feeling that no marketing concept can replace: the sense of having truly arrived.

The hotels in the Green Pearls® Collection are as diverse as the regions in which they are located. However, they share a common philosophy: they view architecture not as a means of self-promotion, but as a responsibility. They do not build in opposition to their location; they build in harmony with it. Because responsible architecture does not arise from trends. It arises from listening.

Sources:

• Architekturfotoblog: Architecture and Identity – Regional Influences in Contemporary Design

• Plarchitekten: How Hotel Planning Presents Challenges for Architects

• Hotel News: Local Flavor – How Regional Identity Enhances Hotel Design

• htr: The Building as a Reflection of Its Surroundings

• Selecting an Architect: How Do Regional Influences Shape the Diversity of Architectural Styles?

Redefining luxury. This is precisely the goal of two Vietnamese resorts. For The Anam Cam Ranh and The Anam Mui Ne, luxury means, above all, authenticity over artifice. They invite their guests to experience Vietnam through genuine hospitality, local craftsmanship, architecture, and fine dining.  Green Pearls® is delighted to support the resorts in this mission moving forward.

The new luxury is authentic and unpretentious

During construction, great care was taken to blend both resorts into the landscape and region. Traditional Indochinese architecture and characteristic forms define the scenery, with buildings that harmonize with nature rather than tower over it. For instance, The Anam Mui Ne cascades down toward the beach, and The Anam Cam Ranh blends into a 12-hectare natural garden with over 3,000 palm trees. The villas and suites have large windows creating a close connection to the outdoors. Furniture, interior design, and artwork crafted by traditional artists and artisans from across the country allow guests to experience authentic Vietnam the moment they step into their temporary home.

The Anam Cam Ranh: Beach vibes under the palms

Located on the northern part of the Cam Ranh Peninsula and directly on Long Beach, The Anam Cam Ranh offers luxurious relaxation with a barefoot feel. In addition to direct beach access, this five-star, colonial-style resort offers numerous secluded retreats, private pool villas, the Anam Spa, and several restaurants with different culinary specialties. Of particular note is the resort’s own organic farm, which supplies the restaurants with fresh fruit, vegetables, and herbs. Guests can visit the farm at any time and take guided tours to learn how it operates.

The Anam Mui Ne: Authentic Luxury in Southern Vietnam

Like its sister resort in Cam Ranh, The Anam Mui Ne, located on Vietnam’s southern coast, shows that luxury does not require a lot of fanfare or exotic flair. Villas and suites in the region’s traditional style, locally sourced food, and art by Vietnamese artists ensure that the connection to the destination is not lost despite the five-star luxury. The Anam Mui Ne is an ideal base for exploring the coastal region, the famous red and white dunes, and the culture of the historic seafaring kingdom of Champa.

Community engagement by The Anam Foundation

For owner Pham Van Hien, it is important that the region benefits from the resort's success. A portion of the profits goes to The Anam Foundation, which initiates social and economic projects in the region. The foundation initiates social and economic projects in the region, such as constructing safe homes for underprivileged families. Environmental projects are also in the planning stages. For instance, tree-planting campaigns are planned for the future in collaboration with regional authorities to improve quality of life and actively contribute to environmental protection. At The Anam, luxury also means taking responsibility in all areas.