Inside Phillip Lim and Hennessy’s Electric Lunar New Year Celebration 

On a rainy day in New York, nestled next to the MoMa and unbeknownst to passersby, fashion designer Phillip Lim and Hennessy transformed New York’s 53 restaurant into an electrifying night of Lunar New Year celebrations. For the guest list, Lim curated a mix of close fashion designer friends, tastemakers, restaurateurs, artists, and more to kick off the Year of the Rabbit for the intimate gathering. Guests, including Jason Wu, Prabal Gurung, Peter Do, Laura Kim, Sho Shibuya, Dorothy Wang, Tina Leung, and more, were in attendance. 

Kicking off the night, partygoers enjoyed a series of craft cocktails and Asian-style appetizers in the 53 lounge space, surrounded by rich, vibrant red botanicals and Hennessy’s exclusive Lunar New Year bottles designed by Chinese artist Yan- Pei Ming. This marks the second year Lim and Hennessy have come together to celebrate Lunar New Year and in support of Heart of Dinner, whose mission is to fight food insecurity and isolation within the elderly Asian-American community.    

Following cocktails, guests headed down to 53’s iconic Dome room for an epic family-style feast by the Chef de Cuisine Mark Yu. Dinner began with a fiery traditional Lion Dance followed by over ten courses of contemporary Asian dishes—oysters and uni with trout roe and ponzu, Hamachi with Kinkan jam and citrus, xiao long bao with burgundy truffles, and more. To top off dinner, guests were treated to profiteroles topped with Hennessy-infused chocolate sauce paired with the maison’s iconic Paradis cognac. But the night didn’t end there. In keeping with the night’s theme, guests were invited to go down the rabbit hole and step inside 53’s exclusive new speakeasy for the very first time, “The BA53MENT.” DJ Mona Matsuoka kept the party onward through the late hours of the night—and with that, a spectacular start to the Year of the Rabbit.