Best Sunday Roasts In London

Keep your CBD supplements and your Yoga With Adriene: a good Sunday roast is one of the best, and most efficient, ways to fight off the Sunday scaries. Whether you’re someone that’s grown up in the UK or not, it’s difficult to ignore the allure of a meal where a good 80% of the ingredients are roasted and/or slathered in butter. It’s simple human chemistry to have the synapses of your brain light up at the smell of roast meat in the oven.

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s difficult for a Sunday lunch at a restaurant or pub to ever match your family’s roast at home. If I ask you to think about the best Sunday roast you’ve ever had, it’s likely you’ll be picturing one that you consumed around a dinner table where an awful framed photo of you – captured at that awkward braces-and-acne age between child and adult where you felt nothing but uncomfortable in your skin and bones – was bound to be placed on a mantelpiece or shelf somewhere within a ten foot radius.

The nostalgia associated with eating a Sunday roast can put blinkers on the actual quality of the food but also, like eating fish and chips at the seaside, it’s often the setting in which you consume a roast that can make or break it. All things considered, there’s some excellent Sunday roasts in London. We've already written about the best British restaurants and best French restaurants in London, so it only felt fair to give Sunday lunch the same respect.

Not only do the pubs and restaurants in this list have access to expensive, primo ingredients (the difference between proper British shorthorn rump and whatever’s available at your Sainsbury’s Local is nothing short of staggering) but you don’t have to do the washing up afterwards, either. These are the cream of the crop – the best Sunday roasts in London which we’ve presented in no particular order. Bon app.

There’s not many London eating experiences I’d put higher than having a Sunday roast at the Bull & Last after a muddy traipse around Hampstead Heath. It’s one of our favourite food pubs for a reason – an ideal bolthole for when the weather is brooding and you want to fill yourself with good food and surround yourself with the sound of pleasant conversation. The North Essex Shorthorn prime rib is a Desperate Dan-sized portion for two which comes with all your classic Sunday lunch accoutrements. Even the vegetarian options are class, though. Ever had an aubergine parmigiana wellington before? No? Well, I bet you want one now, don’t you?

168 Highgate Road, London, NW5 1QS

The Sunday lunch menu at The Clarence Tavern is leagues above your standard pub lunch. The technique and skill of the chefs is exhibited in just about every dish that comes off the pass. Small plates like whipped cod’s roe, served with peppery radishes and crispy new potatoes, sit on the menu next to braised octopus and grilled courgettes with olive tapenade. That Mediterranean inflection carries on into the larger plates, too, with the hulking slow-cooked lamb with fried potatoes and Greek salad being the perfect weekend headliner to share between two hungry people. Failing that, the onglet and chips is an excellent consolation prize. Visit The Clarence Tavern for a nice long lunch and you won’t be let down.

102 Stoke Newington Church Street, London, N16 0LA

There’s nothing actively wrong with a nut roast but, let’s be honest, the best kind of Sunday roast usually involves a slab of meat, doesn’t it? The Quality Chop House is a restaurant that prides itself on its excellent sourcing (and cooking) of such meat. Whether you’re opting for a British Shorthorn rump and short rib with punchy horseradish crème fraîche, a juicy Middle White lion with apple sauce, or a Suffolk lamb shoulder for two that comes alongside a fresh and fragrant mint sauce, you’ll be pleased with your Sunday lunch selection at Quality Chop. Sides include roasties, yorkies, broccoli, courgette, peas, and honey roast carrots but you’d be a fool not to get a portion of the iconic confit potatoes on the side. Double carbs? You bet.

92-94 Farringdon Road, London, EC1R 3EA

Most famously known for ‘The Cow Special’ (six Jersey Rock oysters and a pint of Guinness) and the fact that David Beckham quite likes it there, The Cow in Notting Hill takes a break from its seafood-leaning menu on Sunday to casually knock out one of London’s best roasts. The sirloin is your best option with crispy potatoes, buttery greens, a good-sized Yorkshire pudding and cauliflower cheese rounding off a strong selection of sides. The beef is rare, the room is always buzzing, and – yes – the chances aren’t 0% that you might see Becks.

89 Westbourne Park Road, London, W2 5QH

Many of the roasts at The Camberwell Arms are designed to share between either two or three people, a real “sharing is caring” statement of intent which I absolutely abide by. If half a spit-roast chicken with hispi cabbage and chicken fat crème fraîche sounds like a bit of you, you’re in business. And if the thought of getting your laughing gear around an aged Hereford rump steak with anchovy butter, watercress, and chips gets you a little hot around the collar, even better. It’s not cheap but the quality of the cooking at The Camberwell Arms speaks for itself. A special occasion Sunday roast.

65 Camberwell Church Street, London SE5 8TR

The thing about Hawksmoor is, it’s consistent. It’s reliable. You always know what you’re going to get and what you’re going to get is quality. I’ve already talked about this bovine-obsessed restaurant group’s burger on our best burger round-up, and it’d be rude not to mention the fact that it’s also got one of the best Sunday roasts in London. Like I said: consistency. The slow roast rump comes with beef dripping roast potatoes and, according to the Hawksmoor menu, “lashings of bone marrow”. Intense, but in a good way.

Various locations

The Old Nunhead is an excellent pub that’s got actual personality and plenty of “fit roasts”. What makes their roasts “fit” exactly? Well, that’s the sort of thing you have to see (by which I mean eat) to believe. Head to Nunhead Green on a Sunday and you can get everything from rolled lamb shoulder to topside beef and vegan haggis served alongside roast potatoes, maple carrots, Yorkshire puddings, parsnip purée, cauliflower cheese, greens, and The Old Nunhead’s signature fit gravy. You see what I mean? Sounds fit, right? Make sure to book ahead. It’s popular for a reason.

15 Nunhead Green, London, SE15 3QQ

Steak is kind of Blacklock’s thing in the way that musical theatre was kind of Rachel Berry’s thing in Glee. The menu describes Blacklock’s roasts as “almost as good as mum’s” and I think they’re doing themselves a bit of an injustice there. I don’t know about you, but my mum sure as hell wasn’t roasting whole joints of 55-day aged beef rump or 21-day aged pork loin over open coals – nor was she crisping up our roast potatoes in duck fat. No matter how good your mum is on the hobs, I’d bet that the team at Blacklock will be able to give her a run for her money.

Various locations

Cosy is an excellent word to describe The Spaniards Inn and it’s an adjective which is just as apt in describing their Sunday roast. A half-roast chicken with pigs in blankets and stuffing gets the royal treatment by being slathered up in red wine jus (that’s what the royals do, right?) and served with roasted potatoes, buttered savoy cabbage, leeks, peas, root veggies, and a Yorkshire pudding the size of a catcher’s mitt. Dining in this Grade-II listed pub always feels like you’re eating in someone’s much loved, well kept home. And I think that’s one of the highest compliments I can give.

Spaniards Road, London NW3 7JJ

The Sunday roast at Ling Ling’s is, at the time of writing, taking a bit of a hiatus. But it’s going to be back in September so if you’re reading this in the future and the Sunday roast is already back on then I’m giving you some stern advice to go and eat at The Gun at your next available opportunity. The kitchen is run by Jenny Phung and James Shepherd and the roasts are just as punchy and innovative as the rest of the menu. Chicken, sea bass, pork belly and short rib have all made appearances on plates joined by the likes of sesame seed Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, and veggies. The miso gravy that’s poured on top? Out of bounds. In the immortal words of Billie Joe Armstrong: “wake me up when it’s September and Ling Ling’s have got the Sunday roast back on.” Or something like that.

235 Well Street, London, E9 6RG