BAO Celebrates Mid-Autumn With a Guest Chef-Led Moon Festival Menu

BAO is extending its Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations into October with a dedicated Moon Festival Set Menu, following the one-day Moon Market held outside BAO Borough on September 24. Drawing on the festival’s traditions of gathering, abundance and communal dining, the menu will be served at BAO King’s Cross, City, Borough and Marylebone from September 29 through October 25, with generous sharing platters intended to be ordered by the whole table. The seasonal program builds on BAO’s Taiwanese-inspired approach to buns and small plates, which has shaped the London restaurant group since founders Shing Tat Chung, Erchen Chang and Wai Ting Chung opened its first permanent Soho location in 2015.

Priced at £35 GBP (approx. $46 USD) per person, the set menu opens with an individual Westholme x BAO Grilled Sacha Wagyu BAO, combining North Australian wagyu striploin marinated in umami-rich shacha sauce with braised shallots and daikon pickle. From there, the meal shifts into a communal platter of guest-chef BBQ skewers created by several of BAO’s industry friends. Mambow’s Abby Lee contributes Malay Chipirones, pairing grilled baby squid with squid ink and kaffir lime curry sauce, while culinary artist Nil Mutluer, also known as Heal Goblin, serves Xinjiang Lamb seasoned with cumin, coriander and chilli. Miga’s Mr Ko adds a Korean BBQ Ribeye skewer with sake and pickled celery, and Singburi’s Sirichai Kularbwong looks to a childhood favorite for his Khao Jee Sticky Rice, coating egg-washed sticky rice cakes with Maggi sauce and finishing them with pork floss. Smacked cucumbers, kimchi and lard soy rice round out the shared spread. Dessert continues the lunar theme with BAO’s Moon Face BAO, a special-edition bun filled with salted egg custard.

Several elements of the celebration will also be available separately across all BAO locations from September 29, including the Moon Face BAO for £6 GBP (approx. $8 USD), the Westholme collaboration bun for £7.50 GBP (approx. $10 USD) and a Suntory Toki Apple Highball for £10 GBP (approx. $13 USD), developed around citrus, spice and warming autumn flavors. As BAO co-founder and creative director Erchen Chang notes, the wider program interprets Mid-Autumn Festival as a moment of reunion and shared food at the close of the harvest season, a theme reflected most directly in the menu’s table-wide, family-style format.