Chinese Lunar New Year in London 2025

Join the biggest Chinese New Year celebrations outside Asia at this massive street party. Hundreds of thousands of revellers will flock to the West End for festivities that kick off at with a colourful lion and dragon-filled parade that progresses down Charing Cross Road, Shaftesbury Avenue and through Chinatown. Then, head to Trafalgar Square for free stage shows including martial arts displays, traditional dances, and Chinese pop performances. There's also a family zone in Leicester Square for activities including arts, crafts and dressing up. The festivities culminate with fireworks and techno lion dances as darkness falls.

Greenwich Peninsula will be transformed into a festival of Lunar New Year activity on February 1, ushering in the year of the snake with a host of performances, workshops and tasty treats. Head down to witness the dragon and lion dances, which blend stunning costumes, rhythmic drumming and impressive acrobatics, or try your hand at bamboo coaster weaving, Chinese knot-making and Mahjong. DJs from the Eastern Margins collective will be soundtracking the day, while in the canteen you’ll find delicious dishes from across Asia to keep you fuelled up, from congee to youtiao street food.

Celebrate the Lunar New Year in the best way possible – tucking into a feast of yummy food. Emily Yeoh, co-founder of artisanal hot sauce brand Two Hot Asians, is hosting a special supper club at Hackney’s Mama Shelter. She’ll be serving up a slap-up menu of special occasion dishes from her book Recipe Therapy, including dumplings, Hainanese-style roast chicken and desserts. 

The BFI Southbank’s Lunar New Year film season returns in 2025, with a programme of three films that have been selected by Focus Hong Kong. The big draw is the UK premiere of True Love, for Once in My Life. Produced by acclaimed Hong Kong filmmaker Fruit Chan, screenwriter Siu Koon-ho’s directorial debut is a nuanced drama tracing the lifelong relationship between a couple stuck in a failed marriage. Also on the bill is All Shall Be Well, a moving portrait of a group of older friends in Hong Kong’s queer community that tackles the injustices faced by a bereaved elderly lesbian and a 40th-anniversary screening of Tsui Hark’s timeless 1930s-set rom-com Shanghai Blues. 

Museum of the Home’s special Housewarming event puts the focus on a Vietnamese home in London, dressed for Tết – or Vietnamese Lunar New Year. As well as the chance to discover personal stories and histories in the galleries, you’ll be able to enjoy a range of activities and refreshments. There’ll be a screening of Andy Hoang’s new short film Roast Pork, a fashion documentary that celebrates East Asian culture and tradition in London, and a film installation, Home Grown, which explores the significance of home gardens for the city’s Vietnamese community. Music will come via a playlist curated by DJ Phambinho, while you can learn how to make spring rolls in the Vietcentric Spring Roll Workshop (£25) or join a curator tour of the seven newest period rooms in Rooms Through Time (£5).

Did you know London’s original Chinatown wasn’t located in its current spot next to Soho, but was actually a bit further east in Limehouse? Celebrate the Lunar New Year a stone’s throw from Chinatown's roots at the London Museum Docklands, who’ll be running a free festival on the first weekend of February that’s suitable for all the family. You’ll be able to immerse yourself in Chinese folktales, try your hand at crafts and workshops, and sit back and marvel at the dragon dance. The full programme will be released soon – note that while the event is free entry, booking is required.

Camden Market gets a makeover to celebrate Chinese New Year, with the area being transformed into a new world of traditional performances, visuals and workshops. The lion dance parade will transfix shoppers as it works its way through the market and Hawley Wharf, while live music and performances will keep the crowds entertained once the lion dance is over. Elsewhere, you’ll find market stalls selling traditional and creative goods, and workshops that will allow you to learn a new skill, including calligraphy, woodblock printing and fan making.

Aesthetic Taiwanese restaurant chain BAO has a history of doing all sorts of artistically impressive things with the humble bao bun, from making flower baos and hot cross baos for Mother’s Day and Easter, to crafting puffer jackets and handbags out of the stuff, but we’re especially enamoured with the super cute pistachio-filled serpent baos they’ve crafted for the upcoming Lunar New Year. Available from all seven BAO sites from January 20, the slithery little sweet treats are best enjoyed at the end of the restaurant’s five course Lunar New Year feasting menu. Available for £29 per person from the City, Marylebone, King’s Cross, Shoreditch and Battersea locations, it features a variety of dishes symbolising luck and prosperity. Better yet, every guest who opts for the set menu will be given a red envelope potentially containing one of several serpent-themed prizes ranging from BAO vouchers and limited edition merch to a one-of-a-kind engraved lighter entitling the winner to one free bao every day for a year. Know someone who was born in the Year of the Snake? They’re said to be extra lucky this year, so why not take them for a slap-up dinner?

As we enter the year of the snake, the Museum of the Home is throwing a day celebrating the incoming Lunar New Year and exploring the stories behind it. Kids can get creative in ‘Ssssnake Play’, where they’ll be let loose with fabric, paper, instruments and more to create their own vision of a slithery snake. The Mini Playhouse will offer a space for them to make their own temporary homes, and Tony Tang will be on hand to provide some musical storytelling to enrapture their young minds further.

From ancient astronomy to the modern-day, explore how Chinese astronomers have interpreted the sun, the moon, the stars and space exploration during this special show at Greenwich’s Royal Observatory commemorating the Lunar New Year. Free entry to the Royal Observatory is included in your ticket, and this show is suited to ages 7+.

Immerse yourself in the tastes of Taiwan at Tooting’s Daddy Bao, who’ll be serving up a special Lunar New Year Seafood Feast for one night only. For £60 per person, you get a welcome cocktail, snack and six-course set menu and, boy, does it sound like it’ll satisfy your tastebuds. Among the offerings this year are a seven-coloured fish salad, BBQ prawn bao, vegetables and mushroom XO spring rolls, brown shrimp taro puffs, smoked eel and cod siu mai, butterflied sea bass, longevitiy noodles, and an eight treasure rice pudding. Interested? Book ASAP – this annual event usually sells out.

Gift stalls, face painting, paper lantern-making workshops and even a Chinese-themed Punch and Judy show are just some of the activities on offer at Twickenham’s free Chinese New Year celebrations, which take place the weekend before the Lunar New Year. Head down to Patch Academy on York Street to get involved after the main event; a colourful dragon dance starting at Twickenham Green at 1pm, before wending its way down  The parade will continue down Heath Road, King Street, London Road and Church Street, stopping by the Twickenham Riverside at around 3.30pm.

Delicious food is a central part of Lunar New Year celebrations, so why not mark the occasion with a Chinese meal? Here's out pick of London's very best Chinese restaurants: lucky foods to order include dumplings (for wealth), noodles (for longevity) and fish (for surplus) so make sure they're a part of your feast.