Tea Room, the Cantonese cocktail den in Soho beneath Bun House, that takes inspiration from 1960s Hong Kong, will be celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival with mooncakes next month.
Symbolic of the season’s first full moon, the sweet cakes will feature on Tea Room’s menu in the lead up to the festival itself, to be marked with a party on Sunday 23 September, carrying on to Monday 24th.
Recollecting co-founder Z He’s childhood memories, mooncakes are an indispensable staple of any Chinese household during the harvest festival. Downstairs in the neon-lit surroundings of the Tea Room, the mooncakes; a traditional lotus blossom paste and the Bun House special, filled with custard will be available throughout September to enjoy alongside Tea Room’s special Mid-Autumn cocktails.
As the sun goes down on 23 September, Tea Room will celebrate the festival as it plays host to a two-night mooncake party. Upstairs at Bun House, mooncakes will be available straight from the shelf, wrapped in custom-decorated packaging, from 13th September.
Tea Room co-founder Z He said, “This time of year is so important in the Chinese calendar, so it’s a thrill to bring the mooncake back to London. Every bite brings sweet memories from my childhood of my grandfather cutting the mooncakes into pieces and handing them out to everyone in the family – a moment that symbolises the family coming together.”
Soundtracked to vintage LPs playing from a restored jukebox, the Tea Room bar will be serving up two special cocktails to mark the occasion, using special celebratory ingredients found during a mid-autumn feast, alongside Tea Room’s full menu of cocktails.
An accompanying food menu of snacks and signature coal skewers will be available as always, whilst elsewhere on the drinks menu guests can expect to find a selection of craft beers imported from Hong Kong, seldom found anywhere else in the UK.