Carpenter's Arms © Ed Marshall
London's best Sunday lunches
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Time Out Restaurant editors. Photography Rob Greig and Ed Marshall
Updated: Tue Nov 24 2009 -
As the chill sets in, there's no better way to while away a Sunday afternoon than by munching lazily through a thoroughly indulgent lunch. Let the Time Out experts guide you through the best Sunday lunches in London – from traditional pub roasts to wondrous world cuisine
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Adam & Eve
77a Wells Street, Fitzrovia, W1T 3QQ
This is one of the newer pubs from Geronimo Inns, the upmarket gastropub chain, and it’s a cracker. The menu changes and there are often specials, but on one visit we enjoyed the roast lamb, nicely medium-rare, with braised savoy cabbage and roast new potatoes, served with a pleasingly herbaceous rosemary jus (£11.50). Sunday lunch is served all day, but if you’re just after a snack, there’s also a good selection of sandwiches (rare roast beef, onion chutney and horseradish: £5.95) or a ploughman’s lunch with ham, cheddar cheese or pork pie (£7.50). Sunday lunch served noon-8.30pm. Sunday lunch for two with wine and service: around £45. Read more
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The Modern Pantry
47-48 St John's Square, Clerkenwell, EC1V 4JJ
Clerkenwell’s art-and-architecture types and well-informed gastro-tourists descend on the Modern Pantry every Sunday. They come for the laid-back sophistication of the glammed-up Georgian surroundings and for chef Anna Hansen’s creative, world-on-a-plate style of cooking. In addition to the pristine, white downstairs dining room, there are two smaller dove-grey rooms upstairs (grab a table by the large windows if you can). Starters such as silky-smooth curried parsnip and coconut soup sparked up with pickled tomatillo, or sweetcorn, date and coriander fritters are Hansen’s trademark and not your average gastropub fare. Mains such as meltingly tender, crisp-skinned slow-roast pork belly with peppery roast potatoes and chilli jam, or rosemary-and-garlic roast leg of lamb are more in keeping with the wider Brit-nosh trend yet very satisfying. Veggies are well looked after here; our meat-free ‘roast’ comprised two big dumplings (one made from cavolo nero, hijiki and ricotta, the other of quinoa delicately flavoured with licorice) served in a brown butter sauce, and was a knockout. The wine list and cocktails are as tastefully eclectic as the menu. Sunday lunch served noon-4pm. Sunday lunch for two with service: around £55. Set lunch: two courses £17.50; three courses £22. Read more
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Hix
66-70 Brewer Street, Soho, W1F 9UP
One of the restaurants of the moment, Mark Hix’s new British restaurant has an extensive and unusual Sunday lunch menu. It changes every week, but might include starters of Cornish shellfish soup or wild mushrooms on toast, followed by game bird hash with duck’s egg, or mutton, kidney and oyster pie. Puddings include lemon trifle, apple-and-blackberry jelly with ice-cream, or chocolate mousse. Sunday lunch served noon-3pm. Sunday lunch for two with wine and service: around £65. Read more
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Duke of Wellington
94A Crawford Street, Marylebone, W1H 2HQ
The Duke was a runner-up in 2008’s Time Out Eating & Drinking Awards in 2008 in the Best Gastropub category, and the standard hasn’t diminished at all since then. It’s a friendly yet sophisticated place to take Sunday lunch– you’ll find superlative roasts such as Gascony pork shoulder or sirloin of longhorn beef on the French-dominated menu. Sunday lunch served 12.30-4.30pm. Lunch for two with drinks and service: around £60. Read more
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Great Queen Street
32 Great Queen Street, Holborn, WC2B 5AA
A welcome alternative to the usual tourist traps found in Covent Garden, Great Queen Street is a lively spot to share a Sunday lunch. The menu changes weekly, but recent meaty offerings have included roast partridge with celeriac, rare roast Hereford beef and middlewhite faggot with chips. Sunday lunch served 12.30-2.30pm. Sunday lunch for two with drinks and service: around £55. Read more
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National Dining Rooms
Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Trafalgar Square, WC2N 5DN
The ideal itinerary for culture vultures would be a morning spent perusing great works of art before settling down for a properly British Sunday lunch in the National Gallery’s fine dining restaurant, which is no ordinary museum eaterie. Provenance and seasonality are given priority, so dine on the likes of roast leg of Herdwick lamb with Yorkshire pudding, black kale, pumpkin and potatoes or roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, carrots, beetroot and horseradish cream. There are also formidable roast platters for sharing, including a whole roast suckling pig for ten people. Sunday lunch served noon-3pm. Set menu: one course £17.50, two courses £19.50, three courses £23.50. Read more
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Orange
37-39 Pimlico Road, Chelsea, SW1W 8NE
As well as great wood-fired pizzas and a hearty selection of modern European dishes on the à la carte, this brand-new Pimlico gastropub has just started a Sunday lunch menu. Provenance takes importance over abundance: there are a couple of weekly changing roasts, such as Castle of Mey ribs of beef or rack of Gloucester Old Spot. The light, relaxed dining room is the ideal place to linger over lunch. Meal for two with drinks and service: around £55. Read more
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Restaurant at St Paul's
St Paul's Cathedral, St Paul's Churchyard, EC4M 8AD
Since it opened as a restaurant this year, the crypt under St Paul’s has proved to be a delightful place for lunch. On a Sunday, along with the light, fresh British cooking on the à la carte, there’s a small but thoughtful roast option. Vegetarians are not forgotten: as well as roast beef with trimmings, you might find ricotta-and-thyme cannelloni with mushroom ragout, for example. Sunday lunch served noon-3pm. Set lunch: two courses £18, three courses £22. Read more
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Royal China Club
40-42 Baker Street, Marylebone, W1U 7AJ
Fine dim sum in elegant surroundings can be found here, in the flagship restaurant of the Royal China group. The creativity of dishes such as light fish dumplings in rice noodle wrappers floating in soy milk with bamboo shoots is astounding, and encapsulates the freshness and lightness of classic Cantonese cooking. Luxurious touches are not uncommon – fried turnip paste is dotted with exquisite wind-dried ham, a delicacy in Chinese kitchens, while the humble cheung fun features fillings of dover sole, prawn and scallop. The tea menu is worth perusing, too. Sunday lunch served noon-‘late’. Sunday lunch for two with drinks and service: around £50. Read more
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43 comments
The Sunday Roast at Lost Society in Clapham was fantastic. Plus their bloody mary was one of the best I've tasted.
The Alma in Newington Green on 73 bus route does an amazing roast every Sunday. There is always a delicious veg roast aswell as the meat options, and usually fish and other stuff too. The atmosphere is so cosy and the staff are lovely.
Well worth the trip
me and my friend Nicola had so much fun at The Great Queen Street and oh how we laughed!!
Great food and great company, Thanks Nicola!!!!
Can't believe they didn't stop in at Luigis, Gipsy Hill, Dulwich for Sunday Lunch!
A general rule of thumb.
Avoid Sarf of the river(=its full of would be loonies who are really nerds) for eating out and ABOVE ALL avoid Yappie Neo Lib Gastro pubs=what are they? Basically you rip a trad boozer by the bollocks inside out and tranform it into some psys ida of Paris or some other place of the imagination.See my blog THE WORLD for pubs
to JRC
Dont woirry bout getting embarrassed in front of an Italian .I live in Milan and have a holiday home near Gallipoli in the Salento and believe me I've eaten some really crap meals in the land of Dante.Its more or less the norm unless you pay big bucks.When I bring Italians to my home in Arsenaland (alas) I take em up Wetherspoons-they love it!!! Especially the beef night.If you don't knw Italy apart from occasional visits well you don't know the food.
Best Sunday Lunch and value for money at Corelli's in Battersea Park Road (and not only on Sundays; the chef Enzo serves top Italian grub any time, any day of the week).
The tastiest Sunday Lunch I've had in ages is at the Britannia in Victoria Park, especially the sharing dishes of chicken for two or rib of beef for four and excellent value for money. fantastically, they serve from midday till 8pm, so it doesn't matter how late you got in the night before you can still get your roast on Sunday all accompanied by some great loungey DJ's till late.
The Anglesey Arms (west London) is a firm favourite for Sunday lunch. Comfortable. relaxed atmosphere and they are very child/family friendly.
Spitalfields & Shoreditch aren't the only places in East London. I think this article should have tried harder; they've barely left The City. East17 in E17 Walthamstow is great for instance. King Edward VII in Stratford E15 gastropub is good. Islington has loads of places too.
The address for the Carpenters Arms (as featured in the 'East" section of 'best Sunday lunches') is wrong. It is not in Hammersmith (west!). The correct address is 73 Cheshire Street, E2 6EG.
The Water Poet? Are you sure?? I had the worst Sunday Lunch there ever a few months back. It was like reheated school dinners.
Worst still, I was introducing an Italian friend to a traditional English Sunday lunch and all he got was confirmation that English food is stodge!
Thankfully, when he came back a few weeks later the Peasant on St John St came up trumps for us.
The Bull and Last in Kentish Town is by far the best for Sunday lunch or any day of the week......
The Three Stags on Kennington Road just beside the Imperial War Museum has been converted into a great Gastropub. Have had one or two delicious meals there: the menu also caters for veggies but we had some superb lamb and trimmings there.
I've always loved Buchan's on Battersea Bridge Road. I always have the Haggis as a starter and then a lovely roast. It's also one of my favourite restaurants full stop.