Family who run Bathurst’s only Vietnamese restaurant fight to keep hope alive as they face deportation

Thi Huế Dao works with her husband Thanh Hoa Nguyễn in the kitchen of the Anam Vietnamese restaurant, which they run with their son Thanh Duc Nguyễn in Bathurst. Photograph: Andrew Quilty/The Guardian

There’s only one Vietnamese restaurant in Bathurst. Its head chef, Thi Huế Dao, moved to Australia with her family in 2015 to take up the job and residents of the central-west New South Wales city responded enthusiastically, filling tables at Anam and leaving five-star ratings.

“My mum wanted a career and we had family here so we decided to come to Australia,” says her son Thanh Duc Nguyễn. “It’s the only Vietnamese restaurant in town and contributes to the diversity and cuisine of Bathurst.”