The Best Asian Restaurants on Buford Highway Right Now

Buford Highway restaurants make up the most exciting and least touristy dining corridor in metro Atlanta. The stretch of strip malls running northeast from Brookhaven through Chamblee and into Doraville is where the region’s immigrant communities cook for each other, and the payoff is a few miles of Vietnamese, Chinese, Malaysian, and Korean cooking that holds its own against any big city in the country.

None of this is polished or built for visitors. The best rooms are no-frills, cash goes a long way, and the signage is often in two or three languages. That is the appeal. Here are six spots worth building a crawl around right now, from a banh mi institution to a charcoal Korean barbecue that has been running for three decades.

Lee’s Bakery

Atlanta · 4005 Buford Highway NE

Lee’s Bakery is the banh mi benchmark on Buford Highway, and it has been for years. The combination banh mi arrives on a crackly baguette layered with pate, cold cuts, pickled daikon and carrot, cucumber, jalapeno, and cilantro, and it costs only a few dollars. The pho is the other reason to come, a clean and deeply beefy bowl that regulars line up for on weekends. Service is quick and the value is hard to beat anywhere in the city.

Canton House

Chamblee · 4825 Buford Highway NE

Canton House has served Cantonese food and cart-service dim sum since 1994, which makes it one of the elder statesmen of the corridor. On weekend mornings, servers wheel carts of har gow, shu mai, char siu bao, and turnip cake past your table, and you point at what you want. Come with a group, come hungry, and pace yourself, because the carts keep coming until you wave them off.

Northern China Eatery

Doraville · 5141 Buford Highway NE, Suite C

Northern China Eatery is where you go for dumplings. The kitchen folds them by hand, and the lamb and the green squash versions have a following that justifies the wait the small dining room sometimes builds. The rest of the northern menu rewards exploration too, from cumin lamb to hand-cut noodles, and they sell frozen dumplings in bulk if you want to take the work home. One planning note: the kitchen is closed on Tuesdays.

Mamak

Doraville · 5150 Buford Highway NE, Suite A-170

Mamak brings Malaysian hawker cooking to Buford Highway, and it is one of the few kitchens in the Southeast doing it with this much range. Start with the roti canai, flaky and pulled to order with a bowl of curry for dipping, then move to nasi lemak or char kway teow, the smoky wok-fried noodles that mark a serious Malaysian kitchen. The flavors pull from Malay, Chinese, and Indian traditions at once, which is the whole point of the cuisine.

Hae Woon Dae BBQ

Doraville · 5805 Buford Highway NE

Hae Woon Dae has grilled over live charcoal for more than three decades, and it is the Korean barbecue spot longtime Atlantans send first-timers to. Servers carry glowing coals to the tabletop grill, and the signature kalbi, marinated beef short ribs, is what the kitchen built its name on. It stays open very late, which has made it an institution for restaurant workers and night owls. Expect to leave smelling like smoke, in the best way.

Sweet Hut Bakery & Cafe

Doraville · 5150 Buford Highway NE, Suite A-100

Sweet Hut is how you close out a Buford Highway crawl. The Asian bakery and cafe fills its cases with milk bread, custard and pork buns, taro pastries, and egg tarts, and the drink board runs deep on bubble tea and fresh milk teas. It shares a plaza with Mamak, so dessert is a short walk from dinner, and it stays open late enough to be a real after-meal stop.

Planning a Buford Highway Food Crawl

Six spots barely scratch a corridor this deep. Buford Highway also runs on its grocery anchors and food courts, from the international stalls inside the Buford Highway Farmers Market to the sprawling Plaza Fiesta, and the surrounding blocks hold Mexican, Cuban, and Salvadoran kitchens worth their own trip. Treat this list as a starting point, build a route between a few plazas, and bring cash and an appetite. If you are mapping out other cities, our guide to the best Chinese restaurants in Chicago takes the same neighborhood-first approach.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Buford Highway and what is it known for?

Buford Highway is a multilane road running northeast out of Atlanta through Brookhaven, Chamblee, and Doraville. It is known as the metro area’s densest immigrant food corridor, lined with strip malls full of Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Malaysian, and Latin American restaurants and groceries.

Are Buford Highway restaurants expensive?

Most are not. The corridor is built on affordable, family-run spots where a banh mi runs a few dollars and a generous meal rarely breaks the bank. Korean barbecue and large dim sum spreads cost more, but value is the rule along Buford Highway.

Do I need a car to eat on Buford Highway?

Effectively yes. The restaurants are spread across several miles of strip malls with their own parking lots, and the spots in this guide sit in different plazas in Chamblee and Doraville. Driving between them is the easiest way to put together a crawl.

Which Buford Highway restaurant is best for a group?

Canton House is the classic group pick for weekend dim sum, and Hae Woon Dae is built for shared Korean barbecue. Both handle large tables well and reward ordering family style.