The best Lunar New Year events in Melbourne

The Melbourne Chinatown Association welcome revellers to celebrate the Lunar New Year at Chinatown on Little Bourke St. The one-day festival will include live performances on stage, including a lion dance, Dai Loong Dragon parade as well as colourful traditional dress, food, music and more art and culture from Melbourne's Chinese and Asian communities. The free festival will run from 10am to 9pm on Sunday, February 11. Find out more here. 

Prahran's fave neo-Vietnamese restaurant Firebird will be celebrating Tết (Vietnamese New Year) in 2024, with an epic seafood tower of mouthwatering bites to share with a loved one or two. Short for Tết Nguyên Đán, Tết is the most important celebration in Vietnamese culture and rings in spring in the northern hemisphere. The Firebird seafood towers will be available until sold out on both Saturday, February 10 and Sunday, February 11, with 10 towers available per service. Guests can choose either a tower for two people ($99) or for three ($148), with highlights of the menu including grilled satay prawns, lemongrass squid, grilled octopus, scallops with tamarind dressing and pomelo, and fresh oysters with an assortment of lip-smacking Vietnamese dressings. Yum.

Head over to this arcade that encompasses Chinese eateries such as Tim Ho Wan, China Chilli and Mrs Zan's Kitchen for a celebratory feed and to get involved in the Lunar New Year festivities. On Saturday, February 10 and Sunday, February 12, visit the arcade between 1pm and 8pm for cultural performances, cooking demonstrations, live entertainment and more. There'll be lion dance performances and a blessing at 1pm on both days. 

This Chinese bistro in Balaclava is offering two ways to celebrate the festival: a special a la carte menu or auspicious $75 banquet, available for dinner across February 9, 10 and 11. Those dining on the set menu will start the evening with Do Yee Sang – a customary New Year salad and palate cleanser tossed in a tangy dressing alongside raw seafood and pickles. According to legend, the higher the salad is tossed, the greater the good fortune for the year ahead. You can also expect to indulge in other classic Chinese dishes, like roast duck pancakes, chicken and prawn wontons, and the restaurant's super tasty beef and bone marrow spring rolls. ​The evening will also highlight a Lunar New Year favourite, longevity noodles. In Chinese custom these egg-wheat noodles are to be eaten whole without breaking into pieces, symbolising that the longer they remain intact, the longer the lifespan of the person eating them. The noodles will be accompanied by a half-roast chicken marinated in spring onion and black vinegar served with wok-tossed seasonal greens and jasmine rice. ​Go here to find out more.

Are you a fan of art that you can eat? Then you'll want to make your way to Le Yeahllow, a cake store on Little Collins Street specialising in surrealist desserts that look just as incredible as they taste. Just in time for Lunar New Year, the once exclusively online retailer has unveiled its astonishingly beautiful Fine Ceramic Apple cake. Inspired by the antique ceramic "Apple Form Water Pot" from Emperor Kang Xi's Qing Dynasty, it's an ode to the universal wish for a peaceful year ahead. The eye-catching creation features a clean, red ceramic finish, with flavours of vanilla, apple and walnut. It's the perfect dessert to end a Lunar New Year feast at home on a sweet note! You could also pass it on as a gift.

One of the few restaurants in our directory to be rated five stars, Warabi is a Japanese omakase restaurant renowned in Melbourne for putting on a show-stopping dinner every time. If you book the omakase experience between Saturday February 10 and Saturday February 24, you'll receive a red envelope containing an instant win or an automatic draw for a stay at W Melbourne. What a prize! The restaurant will also be slinging their Japanese dragon-inspired cocktail, 'O-Ren Ishii', featuring Japanese craft gin, sakura bitters and rose, served alongside a prawn cracker with a scallop and Oscietra caviar for just $88. What are you waiting for? Make a booking here.

Crown Melbourne will come alive with a loaded line-up of food and entertainment to bring in the Year of the Dragon. Between February 9-18 the Conservatory will offer curated lunch and dinner menus. From February 9 to March 3, the atrium will be covered in colourful Zodiac-themed decor, with a massive decorative dragon atop the staircase and daily dragon and drum live performances from February 9-18. Outside, massive water dragon puppets will perform on the river as part of light shows on the evenings of February 9-11. At the Palms theatre, singer Qiu Ling will peform a tribute show to the famous Chinese singer Teresa Teng on February 16. Tickets are available here. 

Keen on checking out all the festivities at Crown Melbourne we just mentioned? Then you might as well also book in at upmarket Chinese restaurant Silks, which has planned a dedicated Lunar New Year set lunch menu this year. For $88 per head, the menu includes a glass of house wine, local beer or soft drink and a multi-course feast of roasted peking duck pancake, Silks' signature trio of dumplings, Japanese scallops and mandarin black angus beef tenderloin, plus other tantalising eats to get you in the festive mood. The special runs daily over lunch from February 9 to 18.

If you've never tried Aru's signature suckling pig, you're absolutely missing out. Usually available only for pre-order and for large groups of eight or more, you've finally got an opportunity to get your chopsticks stuck into one of these juicy bad boys. On the night of Lunar New Year Day (Saturday, February 10), the restaurant will be serving the suckling pig in portions for two (costing $90) – an ideal option if you'd rather celebrate LNY with a friend or significant other instead of a huge group. The suckling pig has long been considered a lucky food in Chinese culture, with roasted pigs used in celebrations and feasts over 1,400 years ago. Aru's are brought in whole, then gently brined in salt and spices, marinated and cooked until perfection, then served with native Australian sambals, lettuces, herbs and vermicelli noodles. Check out the details.

Pan-Asian Windsor fave Hawker Hall will be putting on weekend-long lion dance performances, a special Lunar New Year banquet menu, and fortune cookie giveaways where winners will be able to get their hands on free cocktails – or even an $888 restaurant voucher! All you need to do is dine for dinner between Friday 9 and Sunday 11 February to find your fortune in a cookie. 

Over the two weeks of the Lunar New Year, Sunda will be offering two special dishes (plus your choice of add-ons.) It's the first time ever you can enjoy the famous Chinese prosperity dish, Yee Sang, at the acclaimed restaurant. Sunda will be taking things up a notch for the raw fish component of the salad (the "Yee") with yellowfin tuna and King Ora salmon, and it's only $32 per head. The second dish on offer is an ancestral Chinese favourite known as Royal Concubine’s Rice, made from a claypot-cooked lobster bisque with marron and baby bok choy. The marrons are wok-tossed with a shot of Moutai, before the stock is added along with cooked saffron jasmine rice. 2024 is the year of the wood dragon, with the lobster and marron representing the dragon, and the baby bok choy wealth, luck and good fortune for the future. This auspicious delight costs $130 for two, and along with the Yang See, will be available from February 9 to 23 via pre-order at the website.

If you're keen to hit the dancefloor this Lunar New Year, head to Footscray for this party celebrating queer asian culture and arts. With a 100% LGBTQI+ asian line-up and hosted by beloved drag queens, Dragon Balls XL will be a raucous evening of live peformance, art installations, DJs and lion dances. The performance program is curated to represent the Asian diaspora and inspired by Asian culture, familial and traditional values in a fun and lighthearted format, it's a night for the LGBTQI+ asian community, friends and allies.

This North Melbourne food hall and events space will be roaring into the lunar new year with a fun-filled gathering dedicated to food, entertainment and celebrating festivities with loved ones. There'll be special food and drink offers all day long, and an exciting line-up of eats including Vietnamese rice paper rolls, Colombian-style lechona, tacos, bubble tea and an assortment of Korean street foods. Settle in for beautiful cultural performances, such as traditional Korean drum and dance, hosted interactive games, and of course, the iconic lion dance.  The event starts at noon on February 10. 

Looking to celebrate in style? Elegant Crown restaurant Spice Temple has curated a bougie banquet menu to celebrate the Year of the Dragon and bring in the Lunar New Year. The banquet menu is $149 per person, and will be available from Monday, February 5 to Sunday, February 18, for both lunch and dinner. The menu showcases golden bao buns and abalone dishes that symbolise wealth, as well as traditional dishes eaten during Lunar New Year celebrations, such as the famous raw fish prosperity salad. Another special dish created for the feast is flavoursome Shanghai shallot oil noodles, which are made by hand and served with grilled Spencer Gulf prawns. Book ahead here to secure your spot. 

Book in for a delicious yum cha lunch or dinner at David's or sister restaurants Oriental Teahouse to celebrate the Year of the Dragon on Saturday, February 10 and Sunday, Februry 11. David's is offering up yum cha with crispy shrimp fried rice, braised pork belly, authentic prawn dumplings, Shanghai-style xiao long bao, pan-fried barbecue bao and the restaurant's famous ooey-gooey white chocolate dumplings. Alternatively, drop in for a traditional yum cha lunch at Oriental Tea House with steaming hot Chinese savouries and a line-up of healthy (and satisfying) teas and drinks. Lion dance performances have been scheduled across both restaurants over the weekend.

Fun Flinders Lane spot Cha Ching is helping Melburnians celebrate Lunar New Year with two banquet menus and several Lunar specials to choose from, available from February 5 to 11. The Wish You Wealth banquet at $88 a head includes the likes of salmon sashimi, wagyu steak and truffle fried rice, whereas the Lucky New Year set menu at $139 a head takes things up a notch with a traditional Yee Sang salad of salmon, jelly fish and wontons and a steamed whole baby barramundi. Be sure to toast to the fresh new year with Cha Ching's exclusive 'Year of the Dragon' cocktail with tequila, dragonfruit puree, mint and lime, and finish with a dessert of fire dragon cheesecake with orange jelly and butter crumbs. Find out more and reserve a table at the website.

Piccolina Gelateria is a cute pastel green gelato shop sitting pretty on Smith Street, Collingwood. This Lunar New Year, the frozen treat masters are teaming up with Lygon Street's Lagoon Dining to offer a three-week-long celebration of gelato in a funky fusion-inspired array of limited-edition flavours. Set to be served in two sets of flavours over three weeks, the innovative flavours will be available in all Piccolina stores from Wednesday, February 7 to Tuesday, February 27. They're also running a fun tasting event at the Hardware Lane store on Saturday, February 10, which you can buy tickets for here. We'll see you there for a scoop!