A Drink, Dish, and Dessert! 3 NYC Makers Share Their Lunar New Year Recipes Inspired by Loved Ones

Around the world, preparations are currently underway for the Lunar New Year—whether that’s adding the final splash of sesame oil to a dumpling filling, or stuffing red envelopes with wads of crisp cash. Typically observed in East and Southeast Asia and across the diaspora, the Lunar New Year is a celebration of traditional customs, camaraderie, and—perhaps most importantly—good food.

In North America especially, it’s not uncommon to find folks spending the holiday miles away from their childhood homes, enjoying feasts with their found family. Here, Vogue meets three such makers from across New York’s vibrant food scene—and invites them to share three dishes to ring in the Lunar New Year.

Faye Chen of Double Chicken Please

With the Lunar New Year fast approaching, bartender GN Chan has flown the award-laden Double Chicken Please coop to spend his holiday with family in Taiwan while his co-founder and mother hen Faye Chen keeps the nest warm. This, head of PR Tako Chang tells me, is how the friends and business partners operate, taking turns to go home.

Chen and Chang, incidentally, go way, way back. The year was 2014, and Chang had just signed onto a brand marketing role for Bacardi in Shanghai. That afternoon, her boss introduced her to another fellow enterprising young Taiwanese working behind the bar at a brand pop-up. Chang and Chen shared a fateful exchange that could only be described as a little icy. “Hi, nice to meet you. What can I get you?” Chen asked. “Sorry, I don’t drink,” Chang replied.

Nearly 12 years and endless accolades later (not least of all, the coveted number-one spot in North America’s 50 Best Bars of 2023), the reputation of Chen’s Lower East Side bar has commanded the world’s attention. She and Chang are also now best friends and colleagues. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that the bar doubles as home for them both—their conversation flows freely between business and idle chit-chat. “Once we get started we don’t really stop,” Chang says, gesturing to them both. “We’re around each other literally all the time and we can still talk forever.”

When she isn’t laughing, Chen is quietly observant—and her acumen comes into particular focus as she crafts a low-ABV cocktail for Chang. They reminisce that the last time they had shared a drink together like this was when they first met in Shanghai. Chen slides the drink across with a smile brimming with fondness. “There’s honey-lemon in there,” she says. It’s meant to mimic the sweet, lactic taste of a Taiwanese duoduo that Chen has seen Chang chug down countless times. “Just how you like it.”

This cocktail, based on a simple highball (whisky and club soda), uses oolong tea to lend earthiness to the otherwise familiar peat of whisky. Plum bitters round out the taste, evoking Taiwanese mei zi fen, a plum-based powder eaten with sliced fruit.

Serves 1

• 45ml oolong tea-infused Kavalan whisky
• 25ml honey water
• 15ml lemon juice
• 2 dashes of plum bitters
• 60ml club soda

• 750ml Kavalan whisky
• 20g oolong tea leaves, such as Oriental Beauty or High Mountain tea

• 2 parts honey
• 1 part warm water

1. To prepare the oolong tea-infused Kavalan whisky, add oolong tea leaves to the whisky and steep at room temperature for 3 days.
2. To prepare the honey water, combine honey with warm water and stir well until fully dissolved.
3. To make the drink, add all ingredients into a shaker, mixing with a bar spoon or regular spoon.
4. Give it a good shake for approximately 10 seconds, then pour into a highball glass filled with ice cubes.
5. Top off with club soda to serve.

Musashi Osaki and Jasmine Stoy

Chances are that Musashi Osaki and Jasmine Stoy have already graced your for-you-page or recommended reels—and that you’ve fallen finger-first down their delightful rabbit hole of cozy recipes, from two-day Korean-inspired pork rib stew to a late-night sprouting cauliflower agedashi tofu. The formula for Stoy’s documentation of chef-boyfriend Osaki’s home cooking is at once addictive and inspiring: Osaki’s razor-sharp skill in the kitchen melds seamlessly with Stoy’s narration, equal parts laid-back and laser-focused.

Osaki gravitated to cooking after studying international business in college. Having grown up in the restaurant business (his parents retired just last year, closing their nearly 30-year-old sushi restaurant in Westhampton Beach), he was eager to pivot back to his roots. Following an apprenticeship in a Kyoto kitchen, Osaki took up posts at institutions like Blue Hill at Stone Barns and House Brooklyn, and now cooks for Michelin-starred Restaurant Yuu. Stoy, meanwhile, works full-time in tech—but the couple’s social media following was simply born out of her admiration for Osaki’s cooking. “The point wasn’t to feature a recipe per se; it was more for me to just capture him moving in the kitchen,” she explains. “Later on, when he started R&D-ing recipes, the channel took shape, and I wanted to walk through his creative process and how he thinks about cooking.”

This admiration is very much mutual. When I visit their home in Williamsburg, Osaki is planning to lean into Stoy’s cravings for home cooking and Cantonese cuisine as he makes quick work of scallions and ginger. Steam billows from the donabe, and the scent filling the air brings to mind a Chinese banquet. On their kitchen ledge, a red envelope peeks out from a bowl of mandarin oranges, cheerful green leaves intact. Stoy recalls with a laugh just before the timer sounds, “My mom told Musashi: whole fish is a must!”

A clever fusion of two classic Cantonese staples, bo zai fan (clay pot rice) and jing yu (whole steamed fish). This dish is perfect for those who prefer the convenience of a one-pot meal—and love a helping of crispy, perfumed rice. The goji berries add a welcome surprise of color, taste, and antioxidant goodness.

Serves 3–4

• 1 whole sea bass, scaled, gutted, and cut into 1-inch steaks
• 2 rice cups of haiga rice
• 100g Chinese cabbage, cut into 5cm pieces
• 20g dried goji berries
• 15g ginger, thinly julienned, plus extra for garnish
• 1 scallion, thinly julienned
• Sesame oil

• 15g light soy sauce
• 10g Shaoxing wine
• 5g sesame oil
• 3g salt
• 0.5g white pepper

• 300g kombu dashi or water
• 20g Shaoxing wine
• 15g light soy sauce
• 15g dark soy sauce
• 5 cracks of white pepper

1. Whisk together all ingredients for the marinade and mix with the fish. Place in the fridge to marinate for 20 minutes.
2. Rinse the haiga rice 5 times, refreshing with cold water each time. After the final rinse, drain and combine with all the seasoning for the rice inside the clay pot, then place in the fridge to soak for 20 minutes.
3. After the 20 minutes have elapsed, layer the ginger, cabbage, and fish on top of the rice in that order. Add a teaspoon of the marinade mixture over the fish and cover the pot.
4. Cook the clay pot over medium-high heat until steam begins to billow, approximately 17 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the pot rest, steaming the contents inside for 20 minutes.
5. At the 19 minute mark, add the goji berries and extra ginger for garnish. Cover the pot and rest for the final minute.
6. Garnish with julienned scallion and a dash of sesame oil to finish.

Mina Park of 99

Minja Park, who began her baking practice 99 with a pop-up event alongside Ha’s Dac Biet in 2021, churns out airy fruit cream cakes, mochi, jellies, and every kind of pastel confectionery you could think of. On the day we meet at her home in Bed-Stuy, she’s invited her friends Lyric and Ana for morning tea. She rolls out a rectangular sheet of rice cake that occupies the full length of her steel work surface as her friends burst out in raucous laughter from behind. “I always keep in mind whether the things I’m making are something my friends would enjoy,” she says. “To be honest, my family didn’t really celebrate the Lunar New Year. It was something I only started celebrating with friends later on.” Park also divulges to me that this occasion feels like a full circle moment. “Lyric was actually the first person I celebrated with.”

It’s a sweet dream kind of home; I shuffle around, light on my feet, in floral-print house slippers. All around is the faint yellow haze of light, striking everything from the doily laced curtains of the kitchen serving hatch to the bedroom quilt. I snack on a salty piece of shortbread and sip on jasmine tea; Park delivers a black sesame and kinako-dressed roast sweet potato to Lyric and Ana before resuming her showpiece mochi.

We all gather around as Park places the last slivers of strawberry onto her dessert. The feeling of seeing it come together is almost buoyant. In front of us is a cacao nib-eyed, strawberry-scaled snake: a tribute to this year’s leading animal—and for the record, the longest rice cake (move aside, garae tteok) I’ve ever seen. Teeth sinking with slow gratitude, the snake’s supple skin gives way to fluffy cream and perfectly tart fruit.

This snowball mochi plays on the ichigo daifuku, a Japanese confection typically filled with red bean paste and a whole strawberry. This version, which incorporates butter and milk into the rice cake skin, is particularly soft in texture and gentle in taste—all very much in keeping with 99’s feather-light cooking philosophy.

Serves 12

• 140g glutinous rice flour
• 30g corn starch
• 60g sugar
• pinch of salt
• 240g milk
• pink food coloring (optional)
• 35g butter
• 375ml whipping cream
• 38g sugar
• 6 large strawberries, diced

1. To make the mochi batter, sift the glutinous rice flour, corn starch, sugar, and salt together in a medium bowl. Combine the dry ingredients with a whisk, then make a well in the center.
2. Pour milk into the well and whisk gently, gradually combining the dry ingredients with the milk. Whisk until smooth. You may add a drop or two of food coloring if you wish (the color will appear more concentrated after steaming).
3. Pass the batter through a sieve and into a shallow bowl or cake pan. Use a rubber spatula to pass the remaining lumps through the sieve. Cover the bowl or pan with plastic wrap, and set inside a steamer, steaming the mochi batter for 15 minutes, or until solidified and translucent. You may check its doneness by spooning the center.
4. While the dough is still warm, add butter. Incorporate by pressing with a wooden spoon or rice paddle until combined (mostly or fully) and the dough has cooled enough to handle. Scrape the dough into a large plastic container or a silpat mat, then knead for around 5 minutes, or until smooth and stretchy. Wrap the mochi in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
5. To make the filling for the mochi, whip the cream with sugar until it reaches stiff peaks. Set aside in the refrigerator until ready to use.
6. To assemble, dust your work surface with corn starch, and portion out 12 balls of mochi. Roll them out into flat discs, and dust again with corn starch.
7. Lay the mochi skins over a small, 2-inch round bowl or tea cup. Spoon the whipped cream halfway up, add a small spoonful of diced strawberries, and top off with more cream. Pinch the ends of the mochi together, then flip over into a muffin liner. Repeat with the remaining skins.
8. Cover the mochi snowballs with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an additional 2–3 hours before serving.