Ya Ge (雅閣) menu prices deserve their own guide for a simple reason: this Cantonese restaurant on the third floor of the Mandarin Oriental, Taipei has held one Michelin star every year from the first 2018 guide through 2026, nine years without the rating moving, yet in that same stretch the head chef changed four times and in 2025 nearly eighty percent of the dim sum menu was rebuilt. Most menus and prices you will find in older write-ups are obsolete. This guide reassembles the picture from what can be verified now.

The thirty second version: lunch dim sum sets run three tiers at about US$65, $74 and $106, dinner sets about US$137 to $143, and a seven-course chef's menu about US$369, all plus 10 percent service, with a la carte averaging near US$84 a head; dim sum is served at lunch only; this is the easiest booking among Taipei's starred Chinese tables, through SevenRooms or by phone; the dress code is smart elegant, with collared shirts and closed shoes for men; and the biggest expectation gap is that plating here is plain, because this kitchen sells flavor rather than visuals.

The last page carries a checklist of twelve things to do before you go. Every one is an action, not a feeling. One of them is putting down the old reviews you have read, because after 2025 they describe a different menu.

01 · Reservations

The one starred table nobody has to fight for

Rare good news for this series: Ya Ge involves no midnight race and no thirty-day countdown. The official site routes to SevenRooms, the phone and email both work, and an early 2026 English-language review states it plainly: easy to book, no credit card guarantee required. The homework here is not about winning a table. It is a handful of rules worth knowing first.

Online booking	SevenRooms via the official site (shared with the hotel's other restaurants); an EZTABLE page also exists, with a prepaid discount package. An OpenTable page exists but takes no bookings
Telephone	Two reservation numbers coexist: +886-2-2715-6788 and +886-2-2715-6668 (sources disagree; if one fails, dial the other). Email booking also works
Booking window / waitlist	No published figures. The SevenRooms calendar is the source of truth
Cancellation	No official policy published. The only hard rule on record belongs to the EZTABLE prepaid package: no changes, cancellations or refunds within 72 hours of the meal. For direct bookings, confirm by phone
Difficulty	Not a race. A few days ahead on weekdays and a few weeks for major holidays is the general shape; lunch and weekend yum cha are the busier services
Private rooms	The official site lists 5 rooms with a maximum of 20 guests (one listing says 9; both noted), plus nearly 70 open seats. Room minimums are unpublished, quoted by phone
Dress code	Smart elegant. Men need collared shirts and closed shoes; no sleeveless tops, sandals or slippers
Children	A kids' menu exists and children are explicitly welcome; no age limit on record
Pre-orders	The Peking-style duck is limited daily and best reserved with the booking (no official lead time published)

The real decision at booking time is which meal: dim sum is served at lunch only and does not exist at dinner, while weekend and holiday lunches open early at 11:30 am for yum cha. Book lunch for the dim sum sets and the swan pastries, book dinner for the large dishes and set menus. That one choice matters more than the date.

What I would confirm first at this priceAn unpublished cancellation policy plus an easy booking is not a license to no-show. Spend ten seconds on the cancellation question once you book, and if you take the EZTABLE prepaid route, remember its 72-hour lockout is in writing.

How to plan it

For dim sumBook lunch. For weekend yum cha, take the 11:30 am opening round, the calmest seating.
For dinnerBook the evening and attach the duck pre-order to the reservation.
SpontaneousThis is the one starred Chinese table in Taipei where deciding today and eating this week is realistic. Call first for a weekday dinner.

02 · Getting there

A third floor on Dunhua North Road, in a Tony Chi room

Ya Ge occupies the third floor of the Mandarin Oriental, Taipei, at the corner of Dunhua North Road and Minsheng East Road. The room is the work of designer Tony Chi, one of the shaping hands behind the whole 2014 hotel, and the entrance runs through a corridor of antiques into nearly 70 open seats and five private rooms. Of the four starred Chinese tables this site has covered, this is the only one not sitting on top of a metro station, so the journey takes one extra thought.

Address	3F, Mandarin Oriental, No. 158, Dunhua North Road, Songshan District, Taipei 10548, Taiwan
Telephone	+886-2-2715-6788 / +886-2-2715-6668 (both in circulation)
Hours	Lunch: weekdays 12:00 pm to 2:30 pm, weekends and holidays 11:30 am to 2:30 pm. Dinner: daily 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm. No closing day. Last order time unpublished
Metro	Nanjing Fuxing or Taipei Arena stations, then 8 to 10 minutes on foot
Parking	Hotel garage (entrance on Dunhua North Road, city-bound side), NT$100 (about US$3) per hour, first 15 minutes free, up to 3 hours credited with same-day dining
Being seated	Third floor from the hotel lobby, through the antiques corridor. Private rooms include their own restrooms

The structural consequenceAn 8 to 10 minute walk from the metro, plus the Mandarin Oriental's driveway and valet culture, inverts the arithmetic of the other three restaurants: arriving by car or taxi beats arriving on foot. For hosting parents or clients, driving straight into the hotel forecourt is the smooth version, and the three-hour parking credit covers a lunch banquet exactly.

03 · Menu logic

Lunch and dinner are two different restaurants

The menu logic of Ya Ge fits in one sentence: lunch is the dim sum Ya Ge, dinner is the large-dish Ya Ge. Dim sum exists only at lunch, where the set menus come in three tiers; the evening runs a la carte plus seasonal sets. The same restaurant therefore supports two budgets that differ by a factor of three.

Lunch dim sum sets	Three tiers: about US$65 (NT$2,080), US$74 (NT$2,380) and US$106 (NT$3,380), lunch only, plus 10 percent (late 2025 records)
Dinner sets	Seasonal set about US$137 (NT$4,380) plus 10 percent; a Ya Ge tasting set about US$143 (NT$4,580) also on record (2026). Seasonal specials such as the autumn crab menu priced separately
Seven-course chef's menu	About US$369 (NT$11,800) plus 10 percent, the chef's Michelin selection (on record since September 2025)
A la carte bands	Dim sum about US$10 to 12 (NT$320 to 380); mains about US$16 to 53 (NT$500 to 1,680); top items to about US$123 (lobster e-fu noodles NT$3,920). Average spend about US$84 (NT$2,700)
Signature a la carte	Ya Ge crispy chicken about US$34 (NT$1,080); Ya Ge char siu about US$53 (NT$1,680); swan-shaped char siu pastry about US$11 (NT$360); Peking-style duck, half bird about US$49 (NT$1,580, a 2021 price, limited and pre-ordered; check the current menu)
Vegetarian and children	A vegetarian set menu and a kids' menu are standing offers (current vegetarian pricing unpublished; ask when booking)
Service and tea	10 percent service. Tea about US$3 to 6 (NT$100 to 200) per person, tiered by the tea chosen, with sources differing
Seasonality	Roughly quarterly (April 2025 new chef menu, August dim sum rebuild, September seven-course, autumn crab), with no official cycle published

On the four-restaurant map: The Guest House runs about US$50 to 100 a head, Silks House about US$60 to 95, Le Palais about US$80 to 125 and up. Ya Ge's lunch sets land at about US$72 to 117 with service, dinner a la carte at US$70 to 95, dinner sets from about US$151. It shares a price band with Silks House, and the difference is the door: that one has to be raced, this one has to be timed.

How to read this menuThe best value cell on the whole grid is the lowest lunch set: US$65 plus 10 percent buys the same nine-year one-star kitchen plus a dim sum list rebuilt as recently as August 2025. At dinner, the value sits in the barbecue column, the crispy chicken and the char siu, the two dishes no chef in four successions has removed. The star never moved, and neither did they.

04 · Signatures I

The consensus signature is a chicken

Ask the internet what to order at Ya Ge and the answers converge fast: the crispy chicken. About US$34 (NT$1,080), it has been the most-named dish in reviews spanning 2018 to 2026 and four different head chefs, with a 2026 write-up rating it above the duck outright. Second place belongs to the char siu family: the honey-glazed char siu at about US$53, and the swan-shaped char siu pastry at about US$11.

Ya Ge crispy chicken	About US$34 (NT$1,080). The consensus signature across blogs and platform reviews, with the praise centered on the balance of crackling skin and juiciness (reported speech; sources listed at the end). Portion format and current price per the official menu
Ya Ge char siu	About US$53 (NT$1,680). The barbecue flagship named by both press releases and reviews
Swan char siu pastry	About US$11 (NT$360). The signature sculpted pastry of the lunch dim sum list, with several write-ups built around it
Peking-style duck	Half bird about US$49 (NT$1,580, a 2021 price). Limited daily, best pre-ordered with the booking. Note: the Prophet Duck sometimes mentioned online belongs to a different restaurant. Ya Ge does not serve it
What reviews say	The chicken and the char siu appear steadily across 2018 to 2026, the backbone that survived every chef transition. By contrast, each chef's creative dishes (a former chef's caviar crystal abalone among them) left with their authors, so the inventive dishes in older reviews are mostly gone

The signature structure here differs from the other three restaurants: at Le Palais and Silks House the signatures are large pre-order dishes, while Ya Ge's consensus orders are two barbecue items available on the spot. The full experience therefore has a much lower threshold: two people, one crispy chicken and a round of swan pastries already touch the most agreed-upon face of this kitchen.

Take your time The swan pastries arrive as actual swans, the lamination standing in for feathers. Account after account photographs them and then writes the same sentence: too pretty to eat. Let that feeling last a few seconds only. Lamination waits for no one.

05 · Signatures II

A dim sum list that is eighty percent new

In August 2025, dim sum sous chef Yeh Ming-Hui arrived, and press coverage records nearly eighty percent of the dim sum menu rebuilt. The consequence for a visitor is direct: most dim sum items you see in write-ups from before August 2025 are no longer on the list. The lunch side of Ya Ge is currently a very new table, and it happens to be the cheapest doorway into the whole restaurant.

Dim sum service	Lunch only. Weekdays from 12:00 pm, weekends and holidays from 11:30 am, which is the yum cha seating
Dim sum prices	About US$10 to 12 (NT$320 to 380): swan pastry 360, crispy seafood rice roll 380, mango pomelo sago 320 to 360 (2025 to 2026 records)
Dim sum sets	Three lunch-only tiers (US$65, $74, $106 plus 10 percent), stepping up from dim sum-led to large-dish-led
The rebuild timeline	April 2025, chef Yuen Ming San takes over with a back-to-fundamentals Cantonese brief; August 2025, the dim sum rebuild; September 2025, the seven-course chef's menu launches. The whole menu turned over inside three months
Dinner	No dim sum. Evenings center on barbecue, seasonal seafood and the set menus

The timing rules in one line: the cheapest sets and all the dim sum live at lunch, weekend 11:30 is the front door of yum cha, and dinner belongs to the barbecue and the large dishes. Decide which Ya Ge you want before you pick a date.

An advisor's readOn information freshness alone, the most compelling booking at Ya Ge right now is lunch: the dim sum is months old, the sets are the lowest threshold in the house, and the nine-year one-star kitchen is the same one. US$65 plus service for a tour of a 2025-vintage starred dim sum list is a value combination Taipei rarely offers.

06 · Drinks

Corkage at US$31, tea priced by the leaf

The drink rules are standard hotel practice: corkage about US$31 (NT$1,000) per 750ml bottle, level with the spirits rate at Silks House and below the figure recorded at Le Palais. The official site describes a curated wine and tea program, with no pairing prices published. The distinctive line is the tea: charges run from about US$3 to US$6 (NT$100 to 200) per person depending on the tea chosen, with premium leaves at the top of the band.

Corkage	About US$31 (NT$1,000) per 750ml bottle. Outside cakes carry a cutting fee of about US$25 (NT$800) each
Wine	A curated wine and tea program per the official site; pairing prices unpublished, ask when booking
Tea	About US$3 to 6 (NT$100 to 200) per person, tiered by tea (NT$100 in a 2024 record, NT$200 for red oolong in late 2025). Sources differ; the tea list at the table decides
The four-way comparison	Cost of bringing one bottle: The Guest House about US$13 (four glasses), Silks House US$16, Ya Ge US$31, Le Palais US$38 (third-party record). Ya Ge sits upper-middle

One easily missed detail is the cakeage. Bringing a birthday cake to a hotel restaurant is a common move, and here it costs about US$25 per cake, better declared at booking than discovered on the bill. The tea deserves the opposite reading: a tiered tea charge signals a tea list with real depth, and ordering a premium pot with dim sum is the orthodox yum cha play this room is built for.

The structural consequenceUS$31 corkage inside a US$70 to 100 dinner is not light, and only feels right split four ways or more. The lunch yum cha meal needs no wine at all. Giving the budget to the tea is the answer this restaurant has already designed for you.

07 · Reviews

Flavor first, visuals second

The scale first: about 4.3 stars across roughly 1,270 Google reviews (via a third-party aggregator, worth reverifying); 4.3 across about 130 on Tripadvisor; 4.5 across 34 on EZTABLE; 3.6 across 16 on iFoodie. What follows includes only points repeated across three or more sources, isolated remarks left out. The reading frame: the chef changed in April 2025 and the dim sum in August 2025, so most dish-level commentary from before then is obsolete, while the crispy chicken and char siu commentary spans every era and stays valid.

Praised repeatedly

The crispy chicken. The consensus signature, named across 2018 to 2026 and four chefs
The char siu family, with the honey char siu and the swan pastry each named independently by multiple accounts
The lunch dim sum and yum cha. Claims of some of the best dim sum in Taipei appear more than once in English reviews, and post-rebuild records stay positive
The room. Tony Chi's space, the antiques corridor, the wide table spacing and the private rooms come up in Chinese and English reviews alike
Service. Attentive tea refills and plate changes lead the mainstream verdict (a small number of service-lapse reports exist below the threshold, noted here for balance)

Repeated warnings

Plain plating. Chinese and English reviews from 2023 to 2026 return to the same point: the food does not look the way Michelin expectations imagine. One 2026 review puts it as looks that recall a canteen with flavor far above the looks. This is the restaurant's most consistent expectation gap
Price and value. The value sub-score is the lowest of the platform categories, while an opposing account calls the bill kinder than expected. Both exist, and the difference is whether you ordered the lunch sets or the top-end dinner dishes

How to read this setPut the praise and the warnings together and the restaurant's outline is honest: a kitchen in the old Hong Kong school (the Fook Lam Moon lineage), spending its effort on flavor and fire rather than visual performance. Diners expecting ceremony and plating tend to leave disappointed, and diners who came for a serious Cantonese meal mostly leave satisfied. Tuning your expectations to the right channel beats counting stars.

08 · Planning the meal

Pick the service first, then count the budget

The first seven pages collapse into three scenarios. Exchange rate at roughly NT$32 per US dollar, figures including the 10 percent service charge and tea, rounded, based on 2025 to 2026 published records. The official seasonal menu is the reference before you go.

Two people, weekend yum cha	Enter at 11:30 am, take the lowest set tier or six or seven dim sum items plus the crispy chicken, about US$65 to 90 per person. A full tour of the 2025 dim sum list
Four people, dinner a la carte	Crispy chicken, char siu, two seasonal dishes, fried rice or e-fu noodles and dessert, about US$70 to 95 per person. Every evergreen signature on the table, with a low ceiling if the top-end items stay unordered
Sets and banquets	Dinner sets about US$151 to 158 per person with service; the seven-course chef's menu about US$406 with service. For occasions that want ceremony, with 5 private rooms up to 20 guests and minimums quoted by phone

The timing strategy once more, because it is the heart of this restaurant: dim sum at lunch, large dishes at dinner, weekend 11:30 as the front door of yum cha. Note also that it never closes and dinner runs to 10:00 pm, the latest of the four restaurants. After a concert at the Taipei Arena, this is the only starred Chinese kitchen still within reach (last order time is unpublished, so call ahead if arriving late).

How to plan it

On a budgetThe lowest lunch set, US$65 plus 10 percent, the cheapest starred dim sum ticket in town.
First visitFour for dinner a la carte, built on the chicken and the char siu, under US$100 a head.
HostingA set menu in a private room, minimums by phone, and do not forget the duck pre-order.

09 · Nearby

Four starred tables, four different jobs

Ya Ge is the fourth and final piece of this site's Taipei starred Chinese dining series, so this page doubles as the map of how the four divide the work, plus the in-house fallbacks on Dunhua North Road.

In the same building

Bencotto: the hotel's Italian restaurant, a Michelin Guide selection, the Western fallback in the building
Café Un Deux Trois (buffet), The Jade Lounge (afternoon tea), M.O. Bar and The Mandarin Cake Shop: when dinner is full, the Jade Lounge tea is the other door into this hotel

Taipei's starred Chinese tables, the division of labor

Ya Ge (this guide): the easiest booking, lunch-only dim sum, evergreen barbecue. First choice for spontaneous plans and for bringing parents
The Guest House (Sheraton Grand Taipei, one-star Sichuan-Huaiyang): the lowest budget entry, the friendliest bottle policy, the fullest banquet infrastructure. The full guide is here →
Silks House (Regent Taipei, one-star Cantonese): the 2026 newcomer star with the loudest buzz, booking about 30 days out. The full guide is here →
Le Palais (Palais de Chine, three-star Cantonese): the summit of ceremony, with a calendar that opens at midnight on the first of each month. The full guide is here →
Da San Yuan (Hengyang Road): the old-guard Cantonese house that held a star from 2018 to 2020, out of the star list since 2021, in the never-race tier

An advisor's readChoosing among the four compresses into three questions. Can you book today (yes leads to Ya Ge). Which face of the cuisine do you want (dim sum leads to Ya Ge at lunch, signature large dishes to Silks House, peak banquet to Le Palais). What is the budget (from US$50 at The Guest House, US$65 at Ya Ge lunch, then upward through Silks House to Le Palais). For one Taipei trip with two of these meals, pairing one hard booking with one easy one is the steadiest itinerary.

10 · Details and history

Four chefs, one unmoved star

Ya Ge opened with the Mandarin Oriental in 2014 and took one star in the first 2018 Taipei guide, then kept it every year through 2026, nine in a row. Across that same stretch the head chef changed four times: Tse Man (the first-star chef, who left in late 2020 for 85TD at Taipei 101), Cheung Kwok Pong (2021), Cheng Kwok Hung (2023), and Yuen Ming San (April 2025 to now). Setting the stability of the rating beside the turnover of the names is the best story this restaurant has.

Current chef	Yuen Ming San, born in Hong Kong in 1969, close to thirty years in Cantonese kitchens, trained at Fook Lam Moon in the Law On lineage. Brought to Taipei by Tse Man in 2018 as sous chef, part of the team that won the first star, promoted to head chef in April 2025 with a back-to-fundamentals brief
The chef lineage	Tse Man (Fook Lam Moon, through November 2020) to Cheung Kwok Pong (2021, with Lei Garden and either Yan Toh Heen or Spring Moon on record, sources differing) to Cheng Kwok Hung (June 2023, Lei Garden, Crystal Jade Golden Palace, Spring Moon) to Yuen Ming San (April 2025). All four from the great Hong Kong houses
Dim sum	Dim sum sous chef Yeh Ming-Hui arrived August 2025, rebuilding nearly eighty percent of the list
The room	Third floor, designed by Tony Chi: the antiques corridor, nearly 70 open seats, 5 private rooms up to 20 guests with private restrooms
The sister room	The closest relative is Man Wah at the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, itself one-starred; the two kitchens cooked a tenth-anniversary four-hands dinner in 2024

The record, year by year

2018	One star in the first MICHELIN Guide Taipei, under Tse Man
2019–2024	The star renewed every year, across two chef transitions (2021 and 2023, both without losing the rating). 500 Bowls: 1 plate in 2022, 2 plates in 2024
2025	An eighth consecutive star; Yuen Ming San appointed in April, the dim sum rebuilt in August; 2 plates at the 500 Bowls
2026	A ninth consecutive one star, announced 21 July 2026, keeping Ya Ge alongside Le Palais as the only Chinese restaurants starred in every guide since the first

Take your time Four chefs: Tse Man, Cheung Kwok Pong, Cheng Kwok Hung, Yuen Ming San. Lay their resumes side by side and they describe one world: Fook Lam Moon, Lei Garden, Spring Moon. The names kept changing and the lineage never did. What this star recognizes is not a person, it is a school of old Hong Kong cooking. Le Palais proved once that stars rate restaurants rather than chefs. Ya Ge has proven it four times.

Ya Ge Taipei Menu and Prices: Set Menus and How to Order