London's best Sunday lunches
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Time Out Restaurant editors. Photography Rob Greig and Ed Marshall
Updated: Tue Nov 24 2009
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Antelope
76 Mitcham Rd, Tooting, SW17 9NG
It’s the talk of Tooting: a splendid new gastropub with a lively yet relaxed vibe, and very good cooking. In the dining room through the back, there’s the usual variety of Sunday roasts – pork, beef, chicken, good veggie options – plus original, modish concoctions such as fish stew with mussels, tiger prawns and rouille, or grilled chorizo with leeks and soft-boiled eggs. Our Gloucester Old Spot pork belly came with crackling that had just the right amount of crunch, with the requisite hit of salt and fat together; the side portion of vinegary chunks of apple helped cut through the richness of the meat. Roast rib of Welsh Black beef was perfectly medium rare, not overdone, though we thought one small, rather dry Yorkshire pudding was meagre ration. Plenty of good veg though, including red and green braised cabbage. Sunday lunch served noon-4pm. Sunday lunch for two with drinks and service: around £45. Read more
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The Exhibition Rooms
Westow Hill, Crystal Palace, SE19 1TX
The winner of Time Out’s Best Local Restaurant award in 2009, this neighbourhood eatery reinvents Modern European, adding creative touches here and there (Oriental ingredients are used to great effect). The dinner à la carte is offered at Sunday lunchtimes; the dedicated roast menu features simple roast beef, lamb or chicken with sides of creamed cabbage, parsnips, roast potatoes, carrots and Yorkshire puds along with an intense red wine jus. At £9.95, it must be one of the best value roasts in London. An attractive dining room that pays homage to the Great Exhibition of Crystal Palace sets it apart from the standard setting for Sunday roast. Sunday lunch served noon-9.30pm. Sunday lunch for two with drinks and service: around £35. Read more
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Prince of Wales
138 Upper Richmond Road, Putney, SW15 2SP
This cosy gastropub with its skylight and bold rustic country elements – deer-antler chandeliers, taxidermy and solid wooden furniture – gives a clue to the hearty cooking ahead. It didn’t have the usual slow-roast haunch of venison on the menu on our most recent visit, but we settled happily for slow-roast beef rump with sweet parsnips, Yorkshires, purple sprouting broccoli and crisp potatoes. The serving of delicious gravy was parsimonious, but a fresh jug was brought out upon request without quibble. Rest assured, the provenance of the ingredients are of the highest order: British meats, cheeses and seafood namecheck suppliers such as Elwy Valley and Rushbury House Farm. As sister pub to the Bull & Last in Highgate, you can expect a good feed here every time. Sunday lunch served noon-4pm. Sunday lunch for two with drinks and service: around £55. Read more
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Benugo Bar & Kitchen @ BFI
BFI, South Bank Centre, Belvedere Rd, Waterloo, SE1 8XT
A paradox: the Southbank Centre is a great place to meet on Sundays, yet is full of dull chain restaurants. Of the many we’ve tried, we think this upmarket, chic, modern restaurant from the Benugo chain is by far the best. The menu resembles smart gastropub fare, with starters such as ham hock terrine, followed perhaps by pot-roasted guinea fowl or sea bream with fennel, saffron and butter bean stew. The service is chirpy. Sunday lunch served 11am-10.30pm. Meal for two with drinks and service: around £45. Read more
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The Establishment
35-37 Battersea Rise , Battersea, SW11 1HG
Come Sunday, it sometimes seems like the whole of Battersea is lounging in one of the area’s many eateries. The Establishment fits the bill perfectly, with its unfussy menu celebrating British produce and the ‘Sunday best’ – roast Aberdeen Angus beef with veg, celeriac puree, roast duck-fat potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, horseradish cream and gravy. Sunday lunch served noon-10.30pm. Sunday lunch for two with drinks and service: around £45. Read more
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Fish & Grill
48-50 South End, Croydon, CR0 1DP
Malcolm John’s second Croydon restaurant (joining Time Out award-winner Le Cassoulet) is again a hit with the locals. Meat and seafood dishes dominate the menu, and there is a great value Sunday lunch at £15.95 for three courses. While the Yorkshire puddings left a lot to be desired, F&G gets plus points for an excellent smoked-salmon-and-horseradish cream to start and a well-judged apple crumble with vanilla-flecked custard to end. The service is still patchy, but the well-priced wines will make up for it. Sunday lunch served 10am-4pm. Set Sunday lunch: £15.95 for three courses. Read more
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Joanna's
56 Westow Hill, Crystal Palace, SE19 1RX
This is Sunday lunch with a touch of class. Roast pork came stacked over a puddle of apple sauce and our beef – perfectly pink in the middle – was arranged rather than piled on the plate. No matter how the food looks, it’s the flavours that stand out here – particularly the melt-in-the-mouth beef, which is well served by a long and intriguing wine list. Starters such as sardines grilled with butter and parsley aren’t standard Sunday fare but if there’s a better or more delicious dessert deal in London than the £2.50 espresso ice-cream we have yet to spill it down our shirts. Sunday lunch served noon-6pm. Sunday lunch for two with drinks and service: around £60. Read more
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The Mansion
255 Gipsy Rd, Dulwich, SE27 9QY
Big, comfy, snug and happy, this is a good venue for a long and lazy Sunday afternoon. Consequently it gets very busy and it is worth booking. Many Sunday lunches would fail to recover from a cock-up as odd as the Yorkshire pudding failing to arrive with the big portion of beef (the other roast, succulent Goosnargh chicken, is equally generous), but within a minute a massive and crisp pudding was rushed out. Good value and interesting starters such as pork crackling with own-made apple sauce at £2.50 are matched by stodgy pudding favourites such as treacle tart. Sunday lunch served noon-8pm. Sunday lunch for two with drinks and service: around £50. Read more
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46 comments
The Stag on Fleet Road in Hampstead does an amazing Sunday roast, all ingredients are locally sourced, service is attentive without being too on your face and they have live acoustic sets from 7:30pm every Sunday. Do give it a go!
Any Toby Carvery for me £8 and you can keep going back for veg you will be stuffed to the brim for the price you cannot beat them I use the The Eagle in Snaresbrook. its great.
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......