Chinese New Year 2016 at Yauatcha

Last week I took a stroll through Chinatown as I headed towards Soho and to Yauatcha …

… The reason for my visit was to review Yauatcha’s special Chinese New Year menu that celebrates the brand new Year of the Monkey.

The monkey represents wisdom and is considered to be a flexible sign especially as it resembles humans the most. People born under the sign of the monkey are considered to be energetic by nature, charismatic, loyal and are seen to have leadership. So on this note, with a cheeky monkey year to look forward to, I was excited to try Yauatcha’s latest menu.

I’ve always thought there was one floor to Yauatcha but this time we were seated downstairs, which I loved. There is a bar with an in-built aquarium down here and the stylish interior was complimented by the very relaxed atmosphere. There’s definitely something about the restaurants in the Hakkasan Group that makes them easy places to lose any sense of time as you indulge …

… and their menus are also a good reason to linger.

The meal started with foie gras and roast duck puffs …

… which I enjoyed as I sipped my Pink Kumquat cocktail with Monkey 47 sloe gin, Diplomatico Reserva rum, Domaine de Cantone ginger liqueur, cranberries and rice syrup. Gorgeous! 

The puffs were then followed by caviar taro dumplings and … 

… caviar siew long buns, which surprise you with a burst of soup when you bite into it.

The Yauatcha scallop yusheng with radish, Japanese seaweed, grapefruit, pomegranate, pumpkin and mushroom arrived at the table looking quite artistic …

… before it was expertly mixed up and served onto our plates.

My second cocktail was the Saffron Gin and Tonic, which …

… I enjoyed with the Hakka fortune pot, which comes with prawn, abalone, dried scallops, roast duck, seabass, lotus root, Chinese leaves and mushroom.

To accompany this feast, we also had the dried oyster fried sticky rice with dried shrimp. I savoured every mouthful.

Finally, the macarons arrived and admittedly I snapped these and ate them later. The gin and tonic macaron with Monkey 47 gin, grapefruit pâte de fruits and tonic buttercream was divine as were the juniper berry and camomile buttercream macarons. Light, full of flavour and the buttercream fillings take these macarons to another level.

Overall I had a fantastic time at Yauatcha. The service was great and the food and cocktails were wonderful as ever. If the Year of the Monkey is going to be anything like this menu then all I can say is, bring it on! 🙂

Yauatcha, 15-17 Broadwick St, London W1F 0DL

Disclaimer: The meal was complimentary for the purpose of the review and it doesn’t sway the fact that it was a gorgeous meal all-round.