Dao Duy Tai at his Hillside Kitchen
After 10 years of working in the city, Dao Duy Tai decided to return to his hometown. Together with a friend, he transformed an old storage shed into a rustic kitchen and launched a channel telling stories of rural life that has since attracted hundreds of thousands of followers.
While urban life in Vietnam was gradually recovering after the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2023, two young men made a counterintuitive choice: they left the city to settle on a quiet hillside in Thuong Duc Ward, Danang.
There, an old dusty warehouse became the birthplace of Bep Ben Suon Doi (Hillside Kitchen), a TikTok channel now beloved by hundreds of thousands of viewers.
“If all young people leave the countryside, who will stay?”
Dao Duy Tai, 33, had worked in media for a decade after graduating from college in Danang. But the city’s relentless pace left him exhausted, and he longed to return to his rural roots and be close to his ageing parents.
“My biggest motivation was the desire to live near and care for my parents in their later years. I didn’t want to look back one day and regret never taking that chance,” Tai shared.
The pandemic forced everyone indoors, giving him more time to reflect and ask himself, Why was he living in the city if he was constantly drained from meetings, deadlines, and constant feelings of emptiness?
Encouraged by his close friend Nguyen Trong Hieu, 34, Tai made the move back home. But leaving behind a stable, well-paying job without a clear next step wasn’t easy. His family was anxious; friends were shocked that, after years of building a career in media, he would suddenly give it all up.
Spreading love for their hometown
Dao Duy Tai and Nguyen Trong Hieu prepare dishes at their kitchen.
In the early days, unsure what to do, the two friends spent time wandering the hillside. Spotting an old, neglected storage shed, they began cleaning it out, initially just to pass the time. But as they worked, the idea of turning it into a small kitchen began to take shape.
Through the warmth of a wood-fired stove, they hoped to revive childhood memories and tell intimate stories of their homeland through sights, sounds, and flavours.
In April 2023, Bep Ben Suon Doi officially launched. Armed with only an old camera, basic gear, imperfect lighting, and makeshift filming angles, they poured genuine care into every frame. With no autofocus, they adjusted every shot by hand, sometimes re-shooting a single scene, like a pot of porridge bubbling, more than 20 times until it felt right.
“To us, Bep Ben Suon Doi is first and foremost a small kitchen behind the house. But more deeply, it’s a space where we put all our reflections on home, family, and how young people can live meaningfully in their way,” Tai explained.
Quang-style noodles, rice paper rolls with mackerel, and mushroom porridge are among the familiar Quang Nam-Danang dishes featured on the channel. Each video comes with a personal story, from sourcing ingredients to traditional cooking methods to the memories these dishes evoke for local people.
Beyond food, the channel incorporates community projects. Series like Cooking in a Stranger’s Home, Meals for You, and Reunion Dinner bring them into the homes of elderly people living alone, single mothers, and people with disabilities, cooking and sharing a meal like family.
These videos, filled with the sounds of chopping, crackling fires, and gentle conversation, have moved hundreds of thousands to tears.
Today, Bep Ben Suon Doi has hundreds of thousands of followers across social media, with hundreds of videos chronicling village life. Tai and Hieu have become professional content creators, yet they’ve held onto their original values of simplicity, sincerity, and heartfelt storytelling.
They now plan to expand their content to showcase traditional crafts, local culture, and regional connections through food. They also hope to create local job opportunities, so that their little kitchen becomes not only a place to cook, but also a hub for preserving and sharing cultural heritage.
“One day, we hope Bep Ben Suon Doi will be more than a YouTube channel; it will be a living library that preserves, tells, and spreads everything we love about our hometown,” Tai said.
