Johnny Tran Opens La Nhau With 60 Seats on Murray Street — Public Servant
Johnny Tran, a public servant turned owner-operator, opened La Nhau Viet Kitchen & Bar on Murray Street in Ottawa four months ago. The 37-year-old moved from Niagara Falls to Ottawa six months ago to launch the restaurant, which serves modern Vietnamese dishes and cocktails.
La Nhau seats about 60 people inside, and its back patio will add room for 40 more when it opens. Most dishes cost between $20 and $30, while cocktails are priced from $14 to $16, putting the restaurant in a range that is likely to shape how often nearby diners treat it as a sit-down option rather than a quick pho stop.
Johnny Tran’s Ottawa opening
Tran said he saw that Ottawa’s Vietnamese food scene was still dominated by old-school family restaurants, especially in Chinatown. He said he wanted “to do something different in Ottawa.”
His pitch is “more Toronto-style. It’s all modern.” That is visible in the menu, which includes a small selection of pho alongside dishes built for sharing, including beef carpaccio with shrimp chips for $24 and clams in tamarind lemongrass butter sauce for $24.
La Nhau’s Murray Street menu
The restaurant occupies the space that previously housed Yaari Indian Kitchen and Bar. Its food list also shows where Tran is trying to stand apart from the city’s better-known Vietnamese dining pattern: La Nhau keeps pho on the menu, but it is not the center of the room.
Tran’s move to Ottawa six months ago and the restaurant’s opening four months ago created a short runway for the business, with the back patio still to come. For diners, the immediate choice is simple: La Nhau is now open on Murray Street, and it offers a modern Vietnamese meal built around small plates, cocktails and a limited pho selection rather than a traditional family-style lineup.
Yaari Indian Kitchen and Bar
The patio opening will expand the room from about 60 seats inside to 100 total once the 40 outdoor seats are added. That is the clearest next step for a restaurant that is already positioned as a different kind of Vietnamese option in Ottawa.
