Xuân Diệu: Tây Hồ’s high street, four years of roadworks later

Everything, within one kilometre

Xuân Diệu is where people go when they want to stop thinking about logistics. Along roughly 1.1 kilometres you have Annam Gourmet, K-Market, The Oasis, WinMart, two Circle Ks, Sedona MiniMart, Syrena Shopping Centre, Lion Mall, Starbucks, Highlands, Saint Honoré, Bé Ne Bakery, El Gaucho, Shimla, India Palace, The Moose and Roo, Izakaya Matsuki, The Sushi Club, Gelato Italia, Somerset, Fraser Suites and a Yakushi spa. If a street in Hanoi has ever made a newcomer feel that the move was manageable, it is this one.

The bottleneck, and what has changed

It was also, until recently, the worst bottleneck in Tây Hồ. A widening ran for several years and overran badly. It is open, with new lighting, guardrails and genuinely wide footpaths. This page used to say that we were repeating a report we had not checked. We have now checked it: our team in Hanoi confirmed in August 2026 that the Xuân Diệu and Âu Cơ works are officially complete.

The same caveat they gave us applies here, and it matters if you are signing for a year. Officially complete does not mean nothing further will ever happen on this road. Ask us what the street is like this month.

The traffic that will not go away

Do not read that as traffic solved. Xuân Diệu is the main approach to Phủ Tây Hồ, to the old villages of Tây Hồ and Nghi Tàm, and to several Quảng An schools that move thousands of pupils a day. Junctions with the smaller lanes still snarl. A bus stop on Xuân Diệu was removed in 2024 and at least one commuter was still complaining about the knock-on effect months later.

What you give up by living on the high street

The honest cost of living on the high street is character. A long-term resident’s line about this part of Tây Hồ is worth repeating: “some parts of Tay Ho barely even have any Vietnamese food”. If you want a street that feels like Hanoi rather than an international quarter, Xuân Diệu is not it, and Yên Phụ or Ngũ Xã probably are.

Who it suits

Rent here for convenience, for a first year in the city, or if you are working long hours and want everything inside a ten-minute walk.