London Celebrated Lunar New Year with Cutesy Baozi and Nose-to-Tail Cooking

Welcome back to Insta Stories, a column examining the London restaurant scene through the often-problematic medium of Instagram. This week’s filter is same.

News of the week

As teased in last week’s column, Tuesday saw the start of a new lunar year — commemorated in several Asian countries and perhaps most raucously among the broader Chinese diaspora. Cue all manner of celebration — quite a lot of it pig-related, and blissfully little of it having any truck with Veganuary or, ahem, ‘Veguary.’

MVP (Most Valuable Pig) of the week

Given the weekend featured Super Bowl Sunday, it feels appropriate to be crowning a single iconic performance from the previous few days’ swiping and scrolling. Step forward, Soho’s Bun House, whose cutesy seasonal baozi are so hot right now they’re practically self-steaming.

Feed-clogging event of next week

With grinding inevitability, one handy hook for Insta-content gives way to the next just moments later. Lunar New Year? Over it. Now it’s all about Valentine’s Day — think pink, think roses, think hearts, think chocolate. Absolutely don’t think ruinously expensive set menus with token glass of bubbles on arrival.

Team-building exercise of the week

Does the team at Morito have any vacancies?

Colour palette of the week

#nofilter.

Promising new technique of the week

More restaurants should get into this deep-frying cheese thing.

Dish of the week

Menu-writing alchemy. Adding “fritti” after any foodstuff makes it 50 - 75 percent more appealing; adding “with aioli” takes things into very rarefied territory indeed. All that’s missing here is the classic suffix, “and chips.”

Shot of the week

So pretty.