da nang festival

Durian Pizza Review: We Tried It in Da Nang, Vietnam

Durian pizza sounds like a joke, a fruit so pungent that hotels and public transport across Asia turn it away, baked onto a pizza with cheese. But it’s real, and when we heard pizza durian was on the menu in Da Nang, we couldn’t walk past without trying a slice ourselves.

What is durian pizza, exactly?

If you don’t know durian yet, here’s the short version: it’s a large, spiky fruit from Southeast Asia with a custard-like texture and a smell so strong that hotels, public transport, and plenty of indoor spaces across the region simply won’t allow it. People either love it or can’t stand being in the same room as it, there isn’t much middle ground.

Durian pizza takes that same fruit and layers it with mozzarella, cream cheese, and a normal pizza base. It sounds like a joke the first time you hear it. It isn’t, it’s a real thing, and it’s not even unique to Vietnam.

We’re not the only ones asking “would you try it?”

Durian pizza has quietly been showing up all over Asia for years:

• Pizza Hut Taiwan released their first Durian Pizza back in 2019, then followed it up with a Durian Coffee Pizza a year later
• US Pizza Malaysia has had Durian Pizza on the menu since 2017, with a Musang King and a milder D24 version
• Durian buffets and durian-topped dishes are a running theme in Singapore and China’s food scenes too

So this isn’t a one-off gimmick cooked up for tourists. It’s a genuine, if niche, food trend across the region. We just happened to catch our version of it in Da Nang.

So, what does durian pizza actually taste like?

Honestly? Not much like durian. What you get is closer to a regular cheese pizza with a faint, fruity note somewhere in the background. If you’re expecting the fruit’s famously strong smell and flavor to hit you the moment you take a bite, it won’t.

Is that a good thing or a disappointing thing? Depends on why you’re ordering it. If you want a genuinely weird flavor experience, it undersells itself. If you’re durian-curious but nervous about the smell, this might be the gentlest way to try it.

Our honest take: it’s a fun once-in-a-lifetime thing to order, more for the story than the taste. We wouldn’t order it again over a regular pizza.

Where we tried it

We tried our durian pizza at the Herbal Pizza and Steak Da Nang festival on My Khe Beach, alongside a coconut-cheese-peanut pizza and an avocado-coconut pizza (the coconut-cheese-peanut one won, for the record).

If you want the full details, the pricing, how long we waited, whether it’s worth going, and how to get to My Khe Beach, we wrote all of that up already. Read the complete breakdown here: Herbal Pizza and Steak Da Nang.

Would you try it?

That’s the real question. Some of you would order it out of pure curiosity. Some of you are already making a face just reading this.

If you have a question, feel free to DM me here on IG @fj.at.pattaya or @snny.travel.blog, and let us know, would you try durian pizza, or is that a hard pass for you?