The Show is an immersive dining concept built around live performance at newly opened voco Scenia Bay Nha Trang by IHG, that kicked off with a seven-chef tasting menu, and a whimsical fable about a mermaid trying to bring back a lost melody.
“Let the show begin!” Justin Malcolm announces, in his fittingly showbiz suit. “I’ve always wanted to say that but never had the chance,” he confides as he steps off the stage. This is the first night of The Show at voco Scenia Bay Nha Trang by IHG, a new kind of immersive dining experience for the coastal city. “The culinary scene here is elevating all the time,” Justin had explained earlier, “but there’s nothing like this.”
Welcome To A Show Within A Show
Outside, the sky is darkening, deepening the shadows over swimmers still lingering in the bay as the turquoise water shifts to navy. Inside, it’s a show within a show – the main event being the grand opening of voco Scenia Bay Nha Trang by IHG on 31 March 2026.
As it threw open its doors, the beachfront 31-floor high-rise on Nha Trang’s northern coast, on Pham Van Dong Boulevard, filled its gold-and-navy interiors with the chirpy voco brand’s cute bird mascots, perched and in flight – a fitting echo of Nha Trang’s own palette, the golden band of sand across the street giving way to the deep blue sea beyond.
All 250 guestrooms and suites offer dramatic views of the bay. Upstairs, one of the mascots – a plush pink flamingo, rainbow-legged – is already waiting on the bed. Beside it, a small plate of culinary welcome bites: hand-painted like tiny stones, one for Cam Lam mango, one for Ninh Thuan grape in gilded gold, one for Nha Trang sea salt and caramel, speckled green and white like something pulled from a rockpool. They’re a nice touch – the kind of detail that makes you pick each one up before eating it in just the right order.
On the floors below, there are five places to eat or drink. Infini Bleu is the pool bar, built around an infinity edge that lines up with the horizon at sunset. La Bonita does Mediterranean food – Italian and Spanish, mostly. Socialite is the lobby lounge, a café in the morning that turns into a bar by evening.
The hotel also has a ballroom that looks out over the bay, for blissed-out beachside weddings and convivial conferences, plus a 24-hour gym and a wellness centre.
Widescreen Views And Sustainable Touches
Already, the view is a show – from the corner suite, the front window framing swimmers drifting in from the beach, the side window opening onto the boulevard’s slow parade of motorbikes and, beyond it, the bay’s far shore. The sustainable touches are quieter, a reminder of the fragile marine eco-system on the hotel’s doorstep: pillows and duvets filled with recycled material, bath amenities from Antipodes, an organic brand out of New Zealand.
And then there’s The Show, where Justin’s having his stage moment on this opening night.
The restaurant doesn’t look like a restaurant tonight. Even the lift lobby leading to it has been strewn with marine-blue decoration, a blackout curtain hung across the entrance so nothing gives it away before you’re through. Inside, the space has been turned into a stage, the kitchen line curving around it so plating becomes part of the performance rather than something that happens out of view.
A Melody Shaped By Seven Voyagers
This edition, Justin explains, is called ‘Symphony of the Bay’ – the opening chapter of what will be an evolving series. The premise reads like a fable: a melody that once belonged to Scenia Bay, carried by fishermen and travellers, slowly faded until it could no longer be heard. Tracie May, the self-styled Mermaid of Scenia Bay, sends a call beyond the horizon. Seven voyagers answer, each bringing back a melody shaped by their own journey.
That framing plays out across seven acts, each one a chef and a dish paired to a small lesson. Chef Huy Tran opens with Binh Hung lobster, Sterculia foetida and mini cones – a reminder that the most remarkable treasures aren’t always found far from home.
Seven Acts Offered Up By Disciples Escoffier Vietnam’s Chefs
Pierre Meneau follows with pressed mantis prawn, black garlic and horseradish cream, paired with a family-made Riesling from Alsace, on the idea that legacies survive by evolving, not staying frozen. Gilles Galli turns a zucchini blossom into something closer to sculpture, matched with truffle emulsion and shellfish jus. Sakal Phoeung brings scallop, puff rice and yellow wine miso sabayon – a nod, fittingly, to his own career built across cultures.
Tsuruhara Shozo serves Nha Trang grouper en croute with straw-smoked fish jus, built around the idea that a dish should be observed before it’s decided. Olivier Genique closes the savoury run with Black Angus tenderloin and Mediterranean flavours, and Kiet Huynh ends the night on mango three ways, or “mango, mango and mango” as he describes it – cream, gel, ice cream – dessert as a small act of obsession.
Between courses, Disciples Escoffier Vietnam – which has joined the party on culinary duties, curating the seven chefs – holds its induction ceremony for Nha Trang. It’s a quieter, more formal moment folded into an otherwise exuberant night.
A Milestone For voco Scenia Bay Nha Trang
Justin leaves the stage almost swallowed by his own show – a pair of performers moving in behind him, each carrying a jellyfish on a pole, their tendrils trailing slow and pale through the haze. These jellyfish are muted, dusk grey, drifting rather than glowing – the neon ones come later in the show, once it’s properly dark.
For now, their slow procession reveals, behind them, an underwater snow queen who sits in white, poised and still, a darker figure looming just behind her like a nemesis waiting for its cue.
Later, singer Đoan Trang works the room between courses and segments, her ao dai the same green as the hills that flank Nha Trang’s coastline – the ones that frame the bay in soft, forested silhouettes on either side of the beach strip.
She moves through the tables rather than staying on stage, brushing past diners who reach up between bites to touch her sleeve, before landing on ‘Hey Mambo’. The room claps along before bursting into applause.
As the last act steps off the stage, Justin concludes that this is a milestone rather than a one-off – the start of a series, not a single event. More themed evenings are already planned through the year, and if tonight is any indication, this is a hotel that intends to keep giving its General Manager reasons to proudly grab the mic.
Let the show begin.
