Chinese New Year in Chinatown lasts a fortnight, and during that time the streets fill with drums, red lanterns and crowds. Through the celebrations, the lion dance moves through Chinatown, blessing each shop it visits with fortune and prosperity for the year ahead. It comes through our Chinatown store too, dancing for a few minutes before moving on.
Sakurado is a Japanese patisserie, but we celebrate key moments across Asia each year, always in our signature style. Chinese New Year is one of the festivals we hold most closely: our founder Mei grew up with it, and every year we look for ways to honour the tradition through our own craft. Japanese technique brought to Chinese tradition. Our classic pieces dressed for the occasion. A few new ones that exist only for this moment, each carrying a small wish for fortune in the year ahead.
For the Year of the Fire Horse, a year that comes around only once in sixty, we made a limited collection for sharing around a table. The centrepiece shortcakes carried the fire horse on top and were dressed for the celebration, built on our usual Japanese chiffon sponge. The cross-cultural craft is the point. Around them: our Fortune Mille Crepe bundle in assorted flavours, our classics dressed in red and gold, our Lucky Parcels as a nod to the red envelopes given at this time of year, and the Nian Gao, the traditional sticky rice cake enjoyed at Chinese New Year, best sliced and pan-fried until warm and chewy. Mei grew up eating it every year, and we kept ours close to that.
During the celebrations, Ines Santos at MyLondon visited the shop as part of her tour of Chinatown for the festival. She described Sakurado as bringing “the elegance of modern Japanese technique” to London, tried our Lucky Parcel and Nian Gao, and shared her recommendations within a wider look at how the neighbourhood celebrates. We were quietly glad to be part of it.
On the morning of Chinese New Year itself, Mei joined Aaron Paul on BBC Radio London’s breakfast show to share a few of the day’s traditions with Londoners as they woke.
Chinese New Year is, in the end, about good fortune and the people you share it with. A table fuller than usual, a doorway marked with red, a cake cut into slowly so the moment can stretch. We were grateful to be part of so many of yours this year.
