Noodle & Beer celebrates Mid-Autumn Festival with mooncakes and specially paired cocktails

Sichuan restaurant Noodle & Beer is marking the Mid-Autumn Festival with a range of mooncakes, three cocktails created to pair with them and a limited-edition deluxe gift set, available at its Chinatown and Spitalfields sites in London until Friday 25^th September. The mooncakes come in three sweet flavours – custard, chocolate and matcha – and will be served at both restaurants throughout the festival period. 

Each of the three cocktails has been matched to one of the mooncake flavours. Matcha Made in Heaven, made with Don Q Reserva 7 rum, coconut milk, matcha tea and cacao, is intended to be drunk with the matcha mooncake. Strawberry Velvet combines the same rum with cacao, strawberry and coconut milk, and is paired with the chocolate version. Full Moon Whisky Sour, made with Toki whisky, yuzu, lemon and sugar, accompanies the custard mooncake.

For those buying rather than dining in, the restaurant has produced a limited-edition deluxe mooncake gift set priced at £75. It contains four artisan mooncakes – chunky red bean, chestnut, Taiwan pineapple and firewood black sesame – along with a handcrafted Longquan Celadon cup, a bamboo lantern stand and a greeting card.

Mooncakes can be ordered alongside the restaurants’ regular menu, which includes starters such as chicken, crispy beef jerky and courgette fries with lemon pepper and Persian spices.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, falls on the 15^th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, when the moon is at its fullest and brightest. It is traditionally a time for family reunions, lantern displays and the sharing of mooncakes – dense, round pastries whose shape echoes the full moon and symbolises completeness and togetherness. The pastries are commonly exchanged as gifts between families, friends and colleagues in the weeks leading up to the festival, which is why elaborate presentation boxes have become a fixture of the season.

Noodle & Beer’s two London restaurants specialise in Sichuan cooking, known for its use of chilli and Sichuan peppercorn.

Food Desk

The Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes and cocktails are until 25^th September at Noodle & Beer’s Chinatown and Spitalfields restaurants in London.