Where to eat for Chinese New Year 2026: 11 special menus you can’t miss

Embracing the theme “Fortune in Motion”, Shang Palace offers three elevated dining experiences for grand festive feasts: The Lunar, Imperial and Auspicious set menus. These menus are crafted to celebrate time-honoured customs of abundance and longevity and are meant to be shared. A highlight available for takeout or dine-in is the golden treasure poon choi, a traditional layered dish of meats, seafood, and vegetables slow-cooked in one basin to symbolise unity. Other treats available for the Lunar New Year are this range of handcrafted festive cakes: Gold Bar (ginger rice cake), five-spiced taro cake and dried scallop and ham radish cake, amongst others. 

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Summer Palace invites guests to indulge in exquisite festive dining through set menus for the season, featuring traditional Cantonese favourites tailored for both intimate and group gatherings. For something less gastronomic, the hotel also offers a prosperity high tea at the Lobby Lounge, showcasing sweet and savoury creations inspired by traditional flavours and auspicious elements. The celebration is completed by cultural performances, including vibrant lion and dragon dance performances on February 17.

The Peninsula offers a range of festive dining options centred around the ritual of the lo hei prosperity toss at The Lobby. At The Lobby, guests can choose a lo hei platter for four persons or a Chinese delicacy set to be enjoyed per person. For those looking for a more expansive spread, Escolta hosts a daily lunch and dinner buffet featuring festive flavours and familiar favourites designed for sharing in the spirit of abundance.

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Jasmine provides two opulent set menus for groups of ten: Great Fortune 88 set menu I, and Great Fortune 88 set menu II. Both menus lead with a bountiful prosperity salmon yee sang, serve delectable roast BBQ and a plump steamed grouper. However, Menu II offers additional luxuries such as a roasted suckling pig, red auspicious sweet-sour prawn with cantaloupe, wintermelon, abalone and classic pork belly stew with taro leaves.

No. 8 China House presents three distinct set menus for tables of ten that highlight prosperity and longevity. The Happiness set menu includes traditional Peking duck served two ways. The Longevity set menu adds deep-fried tiger prawns with garlic, shallot and soy sauce and wok-fried scallops with broccoli and XO sauce, while the Fortune set menu further elevates the feast with wok-fried Australian lobster in XO sauce and braised dongpo pork with abalone.

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Red Lantern features a refined dim sum buffet with specialities like crystal lobster dumpling shuijing xiajiao, symbolising prosperity and elegance. Guests can also indulge in the signature hong hong huo huo wok-fried lobster, a dish evocative of flourishing success. In addition to the dining experience, Solaire presents auspicious rituals on February 17, including a dragon and lion dance performance and a fortune god appearance.

Admiral Hotel offers a curated Chinese New Year buffet from February 16 to 18 at Admiral Club Manila Bay, their all-day dining restaurant. This unique Lunar New Year buffet showcases symbolic flavours to usher in the year of the Fire Horse. Highlights of the spread include roasted duck meat wraps with pancakes and condiments, braised sea cucumber and black mushroom in supreme oyster sauce, and steamed snapper fillet with scallion oil and light soya. The buffet provides a seasonal experience where festive traditions meet refined indulgence. 

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At Spectrum, the celebration of the year of the Fire Horse is captured in a feast of good fortunes, a festive dining experience running from February 16 to 21. This culinary journey brings together comforting flavours and joyful traditions. At Spectrum’s buffet, guests can dive into a lavish spread that includes free-flowing chilled juices, local beers, red or white sangria, and a selection of red or white house wines served from a roving beverage trolley. The buffet is available for both lunch and dinner, ensuring a vibrant atmosphere for ushering in the Lunar New Year. 

Celebrate the season with Hai Shin Lou’s specially curated lucky menu, available from this week through to the first week of March. The menu features auspicious seafood and meat dishes, including fresh crabmeat, fish maw soup with sea moss and minced ham, steamed deep sea garoupa fillet with superior ginger sauce and emperor boneless chicken with crab sauce. Diners can also enjoy premium offerings such as rock lobster with grill sauce and stir-fried fresh scallop with walnut and cashew nuts. To complete the festive experience, the restaurant is selling its lucky tikoy, which is freshly made in-house by chef Tommy Yao.

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China Blue by Jereme Leung ushers in the new year with “Flavours & Fortune”, featuring sophisticated set menus curated by celebrity chef Jereme Leung and executive Chinese chef Eng Yew Khor. From February 11 to March 3, 2026, guests can indulge in the Prosperity set, featuring barbecue roasted duck with mandarin orange sauce and braised 10-head abalone, or the Abundance set, which offers roasted pigeon with Chinese herbal flavour and steamed live sea garoupa with fragrant bell pepper pickled olive sauce. The celebration is anchored by the prosperity yee sang, an optional addition to the banquet featuring raw fish salad with fresh salmon and crab claw tossed high in the air for good luck. To end the meal, both menus finish with chilled mandarin orange jelly and honey pearl with citrus sorbet, and traditional coconut brown sugar nian gao.

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