From the classic lotus paste to contemporary fillings of miso, cempedak, and even gin, Singapore restaurants are getting wild with their mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival 2023.
The snack has come a long way since its origins centuries ago. It started out as a celebratory food during the Mid-Autumn Festival, where people across China would consume round pastries baked around a sweet or savoury filling.
Other times, certain styles became associated with different Chinese subgroups, such as the lotus paste or nuts in Cantonese mooncakes, and the flaky skin and yam paste popular among Teochews. Reportedly invented in Hong Kong during the late 20th century, snow skin mooncakes, which are not baked, have also become popular.
Due to migration, these three mooncake variants dominate in Singapore, but not without local twists. For 2023, baked versions feature influences such as Parma ham, mala-spiced nuts, tea blends, and bak kwa. But the fun really begins with snow skin mooncakes. There is gula Melaka, cempedak, and durian. Japan lends azuki beans, miso, and kinako. Classic cocktails like Negroni and Martini are turned into fillings. And behind them is a whole galaxy of chocolate-flavoured renditions.
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While Mid-Autumn Festival falls on September 29, 2023, most of the places selling them are currently offering early bird discounts. From local pastry brands to Michelin-starred restaurants, see below for Singapore’s best mooncakes this Mid-Autumn Festival 2023.
16 places for the best mooncakes in Singapore for Mid-Autumn Festival 2023
From 5 ON 25, the Citrus Surprise mooncake has the expected zing of yuzu, then shocks with the savouriness of miso and the richness of caramel. Gula Galore sees lotus paste infused with nutty gula Melaka and crunchy pecan, while Tea Blend and Silver Lotus++ feature a trio of teas infused with white lotus paste. The mooncakes are housed in a two-tier box inspired by the heritage shophouses that surround the Chinese restaurant’s home in Andaz Hotel and are designed by homegrown lifestyle brand, Binary Style.
Available until September 29, 2023
(Image credit: Andaz Singapore)
Summer Palace, the one-Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant at The Conrad Hotel, has four traditional baked mooncakes like a Parma ham and pork floss with assorted nuts. For their snow skin varieties, they range from lemon mascarpone chocolate with blue pea tea to coconut chocolate with black glutinous rice. Hotel Bar Manhattan also gets in on the action with a gold-dusted charcoal snow skin mooncake, which is wrapped around lotus paste, gin-infused cherry and a chocolate ball with a core of Roku Gin. Accompanying it is the Purple Moon cocktail, a spirit-forward sipper with Roku Gin, banana wine, sweet potato, whey syrup, and hazelnut tincture.
June 30 – September 29, 2023
(Image credit: Conrad Singapore Orchard)
New among Goodwood Park Hotel’s Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes are the custard snow skin pineapple, a tri-coloured creation resembling a Taiwanese pineapple cake. Another is the durian combo snow skin featuring four variants of the fruit. They are joined by returning favourites including Bunny Tubbies – rabbit-shaped pastry with white lotus, pork floss, and salted egg, ondeh ondeh snow skin, mango with pomelo, and cempedak.
August 16 – September 29, 2023
(Image credit: Goodwood Park Hotel)
Baked mooncakes get top billing at Feng Shui Inn, which comes in modern flavours like black sesame with macadamia and tangerine peel, smoked dates and green tea, mala mixed nuts with bak kwa, and low-sugar white lotus paste with a double yolk. For their mini snow skin, osmanthus wine is enriched by yuzu, persimmon, and cashew, while a mulberry-flavoured wrapping is used to encase purple potato, almond praline, organic quinoa crunch, and Peruvian chocolate.
August 12 – September 29, 2023
(Image credit: Resorts World Sentosa 圣淘沙名胜世界)
The highlight of Hai Tien Lo’s Mid-Autumn Festival collection is the No. 1 tea-baked mooncake, which has a robust blend of teas and herbal ingredients that manages to be both delicate and opulent. Other baked options range from black sesame to the classic white lotus with salted egg yolk, while snow skin varieties include yam paste with White Rabbit candy ganache.
June 19 – September 29, 2023
(Image credit: Pan Pacific Singapore)
Hilton covers all the bases for mooncakes. There are traditional flavours such as white lotus with salted egg yolk, as well as contemporary creations including matcha black sesame and gula Melaka with azuki bean. They are packed in a box that uses cut-outs and augmented reality to bring a garden to life – a nod to Orchard Road’s beginnings as a plantation – and the box is wrapped in furoshiki cloth that can be repurposed into a scarf or tablecloth.
August 28 – September 29, 2023
(Image credit: Hilton Singapore Orchard)
At Janice Wong, mooncakes come from three places – nostalgia, Japan, and nature. Under Childhood Memories, familiar treats are turned into chocolate flavours such as peanut butter Snickers and salted pecan dark chocolate, while Japan-inspired brings together baked mooncakes with native ingredients like kuromitsu (black syrup), azuki bean, and kinako (roasted soybean flour). From the Floral category, snow skin mooncakes are done in a pastel palette and elicit aromas from rose to lavender apricot. The mooncakes are available in pairs or a box of eight.
Available until September 29, 2023
(Image credit: Janice Wong)
Man Fu Yuan makes flowers bloom from their mooncakes, with brim with the fragrance of honeysuckle and chrysanthemum, violet and black tea, magnolia and osmanthus honey and rose with chamomile. The Negroni-inspired mooncake also makes a return, featuring the classic cocktail turned into a bittersweet truffle centre and encased in white lotus paste. Like your mooncake with meat but no longer a carnivore? They have one with plant-based ham.
August 7 – September 29, 2023
(Image credit: InterContinental Singapore)
Bons Bons become the template for mooncakes at Mr Bucket. The chocolatier launches its inaugural mooncake collection based on its signature, which is around four times the size of their regular bonbon, plus a thin crisp single original Asian chocolate shell and layers of ganache fillings. Four flavours are available, including salted egg yolk, yuzu pumpkin, honey oolong, and pandan macadamia.
August 15 – September 24, 2023
(Image credit: Mr Bucket Chocolaterie)
PS. Cafe debuts its first mooncake collection, and they are doing it in their own style. The Cantonese mooncakes are stamped with the brand’s designs and come in flavours like a white truffle with salted egg yolk, Verandah (pandan, coconut, salted egg yolk), and Superfood (pine nut, sunflower seed, walnut, melon seed, almond, orange peel). Fans of the restaurant’s popular sticky date pudding can look to the sticky date mooncake, which has plump honeyed dates and brown sugar mochi mixed in a luscious date paste.
August 1 – September 26, 2023
(Image credit: PS.Cafe)
Raffles Hotel Singapore presents two new snow skin creations for Mid-Autumn Festival 2023. Inspired by Long Bar’s Sakura Sling cocktail, fresh raspberries are paired with cherry blossom in the floral sakura and raspberry truffle mooncake, while yam is joined with coconut rum for a modern take on the Teochew mooncake. Other returning favourites range from the champagne truffle snow skin to pine nut and macadamia nut with white lotus paste.
August 1 – September 29, 2023
(Image credit: Raffles Hotel Singapore)
Taking centre stage this year is Shang Place’s mung bean spirulina bird’s nest charcoal mooncake, which combines a nutty profile with the saline tang of the superfood, then wrapped in charcoal skin and sprinkled with gold dust. The Chinese restaurant at Shangri-La Hotel also teamed up with Origin Bar on a number of mooncakes inspired by their cocktails. One of them is Love Handles, which lends strawberry, gin, pink salt, red wine stock, and chocolate to white lotus paste. For the health-conscious, the plant-based Shanghai mooncakes are made with ingredients like organic, cold-pressed coconut oil.
August 1 – September 29, 2023
(Image credit: Shangri-La Singapore)
Shisen Hanten gets in the Mid-Autumn Festival spirit with their mooncakes. New at the one-Michelin-starred restaurant is charcoal black sesame with sakura prawn, pistachio, and melon seeds, while the assorted nuts with jamón Ibérico pay tribute to a Cantonese classic. They are joined by the snow skin oolong tea chocolate with orange paste and lychee martini chocolate.
August 1 – September 29, 2023
(Image credit: Shisen Hanten by Chen Kentaro)
The Irish Coffeetini mini mooncake is the brainchild of two award-winning establishments at The Ritz-Carlton. The snow skin variant sees Summer Pavilion infusing white lotus paste with Irish coffee liqueur and dark chocolate truffle, a nod to Republic Bar’s Kim Sisters cocktail. Other varieties include Summer Pavilion’s signature snow skin lycheetini mooncakes and the traditional white lotus seed paste with a double yolk. All mooncakes come in a quilted leather case.
July 17 – September 29, 2023
(Image credit: The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore)
Gems from The Marmalade Pantry’s Jewel Vault mooncake box include the new Assam tea and Hokkaido milk with raisin, which combines the fragrance of tamarind tea with lotus paste. The taro coconut is another debut flavour featuring the classic Teochew yam mooncake with shredded coconut and Taiwanese red bean, while red lotus and black sesame with pecan walk the line between nutty and subtly sweet.
July 1 – September 29, 2023
(Image credit: The Marmalade Pantry)
Yàn’s lineup this year includes the newly baked lychee white lotus mooncake, which sees fresh lychee adding a refreshing, fruity dimension to the rich lotus paste. The thousand-layer yam mooncake has flaky pastry wrapped around a sweet and earthy yam paste, while the Mao Shan Wang durian snow skin mooncake is richly bittersweet.
July 1 – September 29, 2023
(Image credit: Yàn)
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This story first appeared here.
(Hero and featured images credits: Pan Pacific Singapore; Shangri-La Singapore)
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