WHY Vietnamese fusion restaurants have exploded in recent years, but Red Medicine is no ordinary pho-taco joint.

WHAT Jordan Kahn’s painterly riffs on Vietnamese flavors are under the radar—he’s doing some of the city’s most creative cooking right now. The chic, industrial polished-concrete space makes a neutral backdrop for eye-popping compositions. Unusual ingredients—rose marmalade, smoked Chinese dates, lily bulbs—elevate Vietnamese-style chicken dumplings, soft-shell crab, lamb belly or duck, or vegetables like a green papaya salad or a giant nest of fried sweet potatoes to wrap in lettuce and herbs. Zingy cocktails incorporate such things as pickled peaches, while Asian-inflected dessert collages dance on the edge of savory. At lunch, a simpler menu includes an impossibly rich pork belly-pâté banh mi sandwich, bun noodles or Vietnamese chicken salad.

WHO Scenery-matching grey-clad grown-up fashionistas with statement eyeglasses; Beverly Hills businessmen.