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Joseph Tran gives Cintro on Wellington its direction: Vietnamese reference points, French technique and a table built for sharing. The chef and co-owner has built the menu around contrasts that need company: compact plates, substantial courses and a smoked Whole Roasted Duck meant for two to four people. Japanese flavours widen the vocabulary without dividing dinner into a tour of separate cuisines. Co-owner and operator Ivy Pham runs the restaurant with Tran. The menu divides the evening among small plates, larger courses, a family-format centrepiece and composed desserts.
Vietnamese Fried Chicken is the first direct statement of that approach. Boneless legs take on lemongrass, garlic and ginger before frying, then meet fish-sauce hot honey and pickled daikon; richness arrives with salt, sweetness and a clean acidic edge already attached. Banh Pate So Vietnamese Pork Pie folds pho-spice mushroom gravy, fresh herbs and crisp basil into another familiar form sent somewhere new. For a larger centrepiece, the deboned Whole Roasted Duck is smoked and served with Peking-style wraps, greens, hoisin and pickles. It slows the order down and gives smaller plates something substantial to orbit. Once the bird arrives, dinner becomes assembly: wrap, greens, duck, sauce, pickle, repeat.
The menu’s stranger names are precise descriptions of how Tran thinks. Eggplant Sfogliatelle borrows the layered architecture of Italian pastry for an eggplant dish set with creamy Japanese curry, grilled maitake, bok choy and cauliflower. Strange Flavor × Burrata places scallion, sesame, black vinegar, burnt-garlic chili crunch, you tiao and pistachio around the soft cheese. Dumpling Lasagna stacks gyoza pork filling, char siu, cabbage and nira with black vinegar and chili oil. None of those combinations reads as novelty for its own sake. The European forms make the plates recognizable; Vietnamese, Japanese and Chinese references change their direction, while careful texture keeps each idea understandable at the fork.
Tran’s pathway explains why the menu can range so widely without losing authorship. He graduated from Fanshawe College’s culinary-skills and culinary-management programs, holds Red Seal certification, and trained under Chef Ito at the Inn at Laurel Point. His competition record includes first-place and gold honours in Toronto, Taiwan, Paris, Germany and Vietnam. The biography is broad, but its mark on Cintro is practical: French discipline shapes the construction, Vietnamese classics supply memory, and international references are worked into dishes rather than displayed beside them. Tran and Pham opened Cintro in 2024. Within its first year, the restaurant was included in OpenTable’s Top 100 Restaurants in Canada, an unusually fast national recognition for a new London dining room.
Dessert receives the same level of composition. CoCo Tam Dao begins with roasted coconut ice cream, then adds wild-rice and peanut crumble, sesame cookie, mango and ginger curd. Temperature changes, crisp and creamy textures trade places, and the flavour line moves from nutty and toasted to tart and aromatic. This is not a token sweet course after more ambitious savoury plates. Dessert is part of Tran’s craft, and the menu makes good on it: the last course keeps the same cross-cultural grammar while changing nearly every sensation on the plate.
Cintro’s clearest order moves from direct flavours to stranger combinations, with the duck or another large plate holding the middle and dessert providing a full stop. A smaller table can build the same progression from Vietnamese Fried Chicken, Strange Flavor × Burrata and Eggplant Sfogliatelle; a group has the family-format bird as its centre of gravity. That flexibility matters because the restaurant’s cooking is exploratory without demanding that every diner take the same risk. Familiar reference points keep the table oriented as the techniques shift. The last spoonful holds toasted coconut, bright fruit and the crunch of wild rice.
Joseph Tran’s Vietnamese reference points and French technique give Cintro a coherent identity even when the menu moves through several Asian cuisines.
Dumpling Lasagna, Eggplant Sfogliatelle, and Strange Flavor × Burrata turn unexpected combinations into a reason to explore beyond the safest order.
Small plates, a smoked whole duck for two to four, and composed desserts make it easy to build a meal with a clear beginning, centre, and finish.
This is Restaurantica’s own read — synthesized from publicly available sources across diner signal and editorial research, last updated August 2026. It’s our interpretation of the evidence, not a crowd average — and placement is never for sale.
Chef and co-owner Joseph Tran gives Cintro its clearest line of authorship. Vietnamese reference points, French technique, and competition-honed precision meet in dishes that are composed without becoming stiff. Diners who like following a chef’s point of view will find it across the entire meal.
Cintro rewards diners who want an order to surprise them without becoming a stunt. Dumpling Lasagna, Eggplant Sfogliatelle, and Strange Flavor × Burrata turn recognizable forms in unexpected directions. The kitchen’s curiosity remains readable because each plate still offers a clear flavour and texture path.
Whole Roasted Duck is the centrepiece for a shared dinner. The deboned, smoked bird arrives with Peking-style wraps, greens, hoisin, and pickles, making it both a substantial course and an interactive one. It is the dish to plan around when two to four people are dining together.
Cintro’s cultural point of view begins with Joseph Tran’s attention to Vietnamese classics, then moves through neighbouring Asian influences and French technique. The menu feels personal rather than encyclopedic, with each reference folded into one chef’s cooking language. It offers specificity without turning dinner into an authenticity claim.
Cintro makes shared dining easy through compact plates, substantial courses, sides, and a whole duck meant for two to four people. A reservation removes uncertainty from the evening, while the menu lets cautious and curious diners assemble one meal together. This strength comes from flexible pacing rather than sheer room size.
Restaurantica’s write-up above is synthesized from broad public signal — community reviews add the first-person layer. Share the nuances of your visit to Cintro on Wellington in London: the standout dishes, the room, the service.
Write a reviewCintro cooks in an Asian-fusion register led by Vietnamese reference points, with Japanese, Cambodian, Thai, and French ideas appearing across the menu. The through-line is chef Joseph Tran’s way of composing contrast rather than a checklist of separate cuisines.
