Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year) arrives tomorrow at an unusually late moment, thanks to a leap month in the Chinese lunisolar calendar. The new lunar cycle ushers in the Year of the Fire Horse, a combination we will next see in 2086, and one that presents a potentially bold year to come. The horse is linked to forward momentum, and energy; if, however, you’ve not quite embodied this yet, and have yet to book your Chinese New Year dinner, we’ve got your back. The capital’s restaurants are marking the occasion with limited-edition menus, lion dances, red envelopes and celebratory cocktails. From refined Mayfair feasts to neighbourhood suppers, here’s where you can still book.
Lunar New Year 2026: Where To Celebrate The Year Of The Fire Horse in London
MiMi Mei Fair’s Sichuan oysters
MiMi Mei Fair
MiMi Mei Fair’s four-course sharing menu promises a tour of Chinese cuisine. Highlights include a dim sum basket, rock oysters with Sichuan sauce, wok-baked lobster and Fortune Crispy Norfolk pork with pineapple and pomelo. Each diner will enjoy a bespoke Grey Goose mini cocktail alongside their meal, plus the restaurant’s famous wishing tree returns, where you can tie your ambitions to the branches for luck in the year ahead.
When? 5 February – 7 March
Book viamimimeifair.com; £138 per person, minimum two guests
Noodle & Beer
Sichuan-favourite Noodle & Beer is celebrating the start of a new year with seven specials — a lucky number in Chinese culture — across its Chinatown and Spitalfields sites. Expect festive decor as the restaurants will be bedecked in red garlands and horse-shaped lighting, with interactive activities such as calligraphy and horse block painting and auspicious red envelopes (aka Hong Baos) with a surprise gift for each guest. The specials include Joy dumplings and Prosperity beer duck, which certainly marks the new year with positive intent.
When? 16-17 February for red envelope dining experience, while specials run to 3 March
Amazing Grace’s limited edition Lunar New Year cocktail
Amazing Grace
Lunar New Year is not just a Chinese tradition – it’s also celebrated across Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and many other Asian countries. To mark this, Amazing Grace will run a pan-Asian menu in its London Bridge and Canary Wharf restaurants. There will be a red envelope which will reveal a mystery prize as well as a limited-edition cocktail, The Electric Azure, which nods to the season’s lucky colours. On the menu, there’s a lot to eat, whether Korean BBQ chicken wings or Vietnamese slaw. As per usual, there will be live music while you dine.
Novikov is a quirky restaurant sat on Mayfair’s pulse; a three-in-one dining spot, it offers a lounge as well as two distinct pan-Asian and Italian restaurants. In its Asian restaurant, there will of course be an indulgent celebratory set of specials just for the Lunar New Year. Think lobster bao buns with yuzu–piquillo pepper sauce, plus fragrant steamed market fish with gai lan, ginger and soy. The dishes typically symbolise abundance and good fortune, and hearty diners will no doubt feel that as they stuff themselves to the end, where dessert is a take on the Prosperity mandarin – a yoghurt mousse which will encase a mandarin heart, finished with a white chocolate glaze.
Yauatcha blends all-day Cantonese dining with European patisserie, and you best believe that its Lunar New Year menu features a delicate fusion treat at its denouement. But before that you’ve got a steamed dim sum selection (harvest gold dumplings, and crystal scallop dumplings), a taro duck claypot, and a lotus root stir fry with Chinese broccoli. Then comes dessert, which is the ‘Clementine Ember’, a little clementine, chilli and cacao cake wrapped up as the Chinese symbol of fortune: the orange. If you visit Yauatcha’s sites in Broadgate Circle, City or Soho, you can also expect to see a traditional lion dance.
Covent Garden’s Dim Sum Library has a delicious pan-Asian set menu to mark the new lunar cycle. You’ll start with a prosperity toss salad – a Lo Hei salad, typically eaten by Singaporeans, Malaysians and Indonesians on this occasion – before moving onto indulgent Wagyu and black garlic dim sums, as well as black truffle crispy-skin chicken and steamed Alaskan black cod fillets with Sichuan pepper. Expect playful touches throughout: the restaurant has partnered with Peddlers Gin on limited edition cocktails – including the ‘Good Fortune Mule’ and ‘Imperial Horse’ – while a Lucky Horse chopstick games tests your skills with the implements (if you can pluck a little figurine up with a pair of oversized chopsticks, there are prizes up for grabs).
The Wolseley’s limited edition Chinese New Year bake
The Wolseley
Whilst today a venerable British institution, The Wolseley was once upon a time the home of a celebrated Chinese restaurant. Its Lunar New Year afternoon tea will pay homage to this history with a delicious spin. Your classic afternoon tea fare is paired up with a traditional mooncake for the duration of the limited-edition menu, while guests can also plump for a Saicho sparkling tea in their champagne flutes, so you can say ‘gānbēi’ (cheers) to the new year in elegant style.