Eight To Try: Celebrate Lunar New Year at These London Restaurants

Whether you end up throwing Prosperity Toss Salad into the air at Poon’s or dipping deep-fried, cowboy boot-shaped bao into chocolate sauce at Bao, you’re guaranteed a tasty time this Lunar New Year. This year’s celebration falls on Tuesday February 17, but many London restaurants are going all-out with set menus and events that span the entire week (or month). Lunar New Year (which is celebrated by many countries including China, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan and Singapore) is a time for feasting and marking the transition between Chinese zodiac signs: this time, from the Year of the Snake to the Year of the Horse. London’s Chinatown proudly hosts the biggest Lunar New Year celebration outside of Asia; this year’s will be on Sunday February 22. Get into the spirit at these restaurants.

Beloved Taiwanese restaurant group Bao will be filling its signature pillowy steamed buns with braised pork belly, beef short rib, vegan daikon and more as part of a special set menu to usher in the Year of the Horse. “Lunar New Year is one of my favourite events in the calendar,” co-founder and creative director Erchen Chang said in a statement, “bringing back memories of family get-togethers when I was growing up in Taiwan”. From February 10 to 26, Bao’s sites in King’s Cross, City, Shoreditch, Marylebone and Battersea Power Station will offer the Dark Horse menu, with a choice of bao, Taiwanese fried chicken and hot sauce, chilli crab noodles and chilli crab rice, and more. Dessert is bound to be a highlight, with deep-fried bao in the shapes of cowboy boots and horseshoes, with chocolate dipping sauce, that Chang describes as “adorable – nearly too cute to eat”.
baolondon.com

In her pink-hued dining room at grand Somerset House, restaurateur Amy Poon will throw a Chinese New Year feast on February 19 to 21 with a special menu leaning on her favourite Chinese home comforts. She’ll revive a Chinese New Year staple, Lo Hei, also known as Prosperity Toss Salad, which invites guests to toss the salad as high as possible for success and health in the coming year. She’ll also be serving her prawn wontons and signature wind-dried meats that feature in lo bak go, a Chinese cake made with sun-dried scallops and white radish. To finish, guests will enjoy nian gao, a popular Chinese New Year cake. “My children love Chinese New Year, summing it up as a time for ‘new clothes, lots of cash and lots of yummy food’… at Poon’s London we’re certainly doing much of the latter,” Poon said in a statement. Bookings for the feast are open now, and dishes from the event will be available to order on the menu from February 17 to 28.
poonslondon.com

You won’t find many restaurants in London serving Indo-Chinese food – a diaspora cuisine that originated in a neighbourhood in Kolkata populated by migrants from China, who blended their techniques with Indian flavours. Covent Garden’s Fatt Pundit is one such example – and for Lunar New Year, it will be serving a festive twist on its signature momos. The vibrant red momos (red is a lucky colour for Lunar New Year) will be filled with Sichuan chicken and infused with Sichuan peppercorns, served in a burnt butter, beetroot and smoked tomato sauce. They’ll be available from February 17 to 22.
fattpundit.co.uk

Plans for Carousel’s five-night Lunar New Year celebration have been in the works for over a year, kicking off when Jackson Boxer (Dove, Brunswick House), enjoyed a meal by the acclaimed chef John Javier (Caia). “It was one of the most delicious meals of my life,” Boxer said in a statement. “It made me realise that I’d never had [Javier’s] Chinese cooking, which made him world-famous. We then started planning the menu we would execute, riffing on all our favourite HK staples.”

Javier and Boxer’s menu will blend regional Chinese dishes with playful twists, including monkfish and prawn siu mai with trout roe, bang bang chicken, burnt cabbage with fish sauce butter, and a nostalgic favourite to finish, deep fried milk ice cream. The menu is available from February 17 to 21.
carousel-london.com

You can always count on a good time at Tooting diner Daddy Bao – and its LNY celebration on February 17 is bound to be particularly festive, with a series of twists on Taiwanese LNY staples. The six-course menu kicks off with pork and vegetable spring rolls, followed by dishes like bao stuffed with tempura sea bass, house-made longevity noodles with prawns, and nian gao – a sticky rice cake – for dessert. Each dish holds special meaning, says Angus Collins, development chef at parent group 6 of 1. “[The] spring roll represents wealth and prosperity, as the crispy golden-brown parcel is said to look like a bar of gold. The longevity noodles represent a long and healthy life – they should be slurped whole without breaking them for maximum good luck. And nian gao is a homophone meaning ‘year higher’ – eat it for personal growth, promotions and general success.”
daddybao.co.uk

Buzzy new diner Dockley Road is offering a LNY double header on February 14 and 15 that reflects chef-director Emily Chia’s Chinese heritage. In the mornings, it’ll host a pop-up by Walthamstow’s Lucky Yu microbakery, with a host of Cantonese-inspired treats. At lunch, a set menu will be loaded with auspicious dishes. It starts with Lucky Yu’s soy congee sourdough, before moving into tang yuen soup, a home-style southern Chinese dish of rice dumplings with Poon’s wind-dried sausage, Chinese cabbage and shiitake in broth. A whole steamed fish, traditionally served on LNY as a symbol of prosperity and good fortune, is also on the menu, as is a steamed sponge with Chinese red dates. The bakery runs from 10am until sold out, and lunch is on from midday to 2.30pm.
dockleyroad.co.uk

Mambow chef-owner Abby Lee is joined by Ana Gonçalves and Zijun Meng from east-meets-west dining concept Ta Ta Eatery for a seven-course set menu on February 22 to herald the year of the horse. The menu riffs on Lee and Meng’s LNY memories in dishes like chwee kueh (steamed rice cake) with baby shrimp; pomelo salad; and lamb mixed grill with sambals, herbs and leaves. Ta Ta will also put its own spin on some of Lee’s signatures, including her cendol – an iced dessert with vivid green rice flour jellies, syrup and coconut milk.
mambow.co.uk

LNY goes disco at this collab dinner between Cantonese diner Bun House Disco and pétanque and highball cocktail expert Circle 13 on February 17. The multi-course menu stars dishes including prosperity toss noodles with cured trout; prawn spring rolls with sweet corn and gruyere; crispy pork belly; and lobster XO risotto. Circle 13 is on drinks duty, with a list that includes the Hoisin Cobbler (hoisin syrup shiaoxing wine, pineapple juice and rum) and a Paloma with Sichuan peppercorns.
bun.house