Roast Dinners in London

Hello, chickens, and welcome to a blog where spectacle rules, excess is encouraged, and you might leave hungry – this week with a roast dinner review of 1 Lombard Street Bar & Restaurant in Bank.

This is a blog of splendour and romance, where we celebrate roast dinners loudly and never apologise for not eating the peas.

We are not ordinary people here – we live for drama, (dubious) pleasure, and going just a little bit too far for a roast dinner, like Watford or Enfield.

Yes, this week I had tickets to go watch Moulin Rouge – of which I didn’t realise was sooooo cheesy, I’d only agreed on the basis of seeing hot women wearing suspenders flash their frilly knickers, but gosh there was a lot of crooning to get through.

But hey, it could be a hell of a lot worse, and at least I admit going to Moulin Rouge, unlike Elon Musk who never ever went to Epstein Island, as he’s a well-known one-woman kinda guy so that wouldn’t be his thing.

And, of course, Donald Trump – totally vindicated, yet another witch hunt. Right?

This is a story about love…and roast potatoes

Hang on…maybe let’s check one thing:

Phew, roast dinners are not in the Epstein files.

So I booked 1 Lombard Street for the ridiculously early time of midday, as there was nowhere in Soho that I hadn’t reviewed – or so I thought, as I did look a tad stupid when our taxi from Bank to the theatre pulled up outside Sophie’s with a giant sign for roast dinners. Oh yeah…Sophie’s.

1 Lombard Street used to be a bank which is not exactly earth-shattering news in an area called Bank – and it has a wonderful skylight – not that there has been much light to let in so far in 2026, and we are a good 6 roast dinners in to the year. Pretty sure I’ve had more roast dinners than sunny days so far in 2026.

It’s a slightly more upmarket kind of place – I probably wouldn’t wear my shortest shorts in summer, but I didn’t feel massively punching above my level. They had a cloakroom, plenty of smartly-dressed waiting staff, tones of regal green in the furniture – minimalistic levels of classy perhaps.

One imagines it is much busier during the week then it was at midday on Sunday.

We are creatures of the roast dinner underworld

On the menu was sirloin of beef – cooked either rare or well-done, pork belly, chicken breast or cauliflower, all priced at £35.00 – or £17.50 for the child’s portion.

There isn’t a Sunday that goes by where I am not thankful for not being vegan, and having just “cauliflower” as the vegan option is a stark reminder.

I went for the pork belly, because I had beef last week at The Red Setter in Clapham (rare wasn’t an option there, just raw) – and I suspect I’ll be having it next week.

It was one of those dish it up yourself vibes, so if you don’t like the presentation then glare at me. Though I am getting slightly better at remembering that I need to photograph my food after 363 reviews.

Starting with the carrots, which were roasted quite notably, though a tad on the chewy side. Some nice herby vibes going on with flecks of rosemary.

Parsnips were punching, crunchy and flavoursome – again with the flecks of rosemary.

Two forms of cabbage came (which is on the approved list for Peter Thiel’s Dietary Restrictions as of Feb. 4, 2016) arrived – the red was pungent and soggy – not my kind of thing, but you may enjoy it if you like the winter spice flavour. Alas green cabbage had flecks of red cabbage in too.

And Peter Thiel is fucking evil, isn’t he?

A world of splendour, romance, eye-wateringly average roast dinners.

Gosh Moulin Rouge is utter cheeseballs. I listen to Romanian minimal techno and obscure offbeat techno all day, so to be confronted by crooning about love for the best part of 3 hours was probably more galling than paying £35.00 for a vegan roast dinner with cauliflower.

But still, it wasn’t quite as cheesy as the cauliflower cheese at 1 Lombard Street, which was totally excellent – the cauliflower had the right about of bite, the cream was proper cheesy, topped with chopped chives.

It was the highlight of the meal. Yeah we do go downhill a bit from here…though not Lord Gravy prostituting himself in bohemian Paris levels of downhill.

Well…ChatGPT wouldn’t replicate Lord Gravy in Moulin Rouge because the image would replicate me and is therefore breaking the guardrails around potential fraudulent or scam activity. Apparently.

But a Lord Gravy show with Moulin Rouge characters…this idea has got legs. Anyone want to make a musical together? With techno and gravy? And women in corsets and stockings. Fine…and men in corsets and stockings if we must.

Here we live, here we die, here we get more roast potatoes

The roast potatoes were not quite as sexy as young women in corsets, but hey:

Yes, roast potatoes can be sexier than hot women…which is another reason I’m probably never getting laid again. These were odd, like mashed potato level of fluffiness inside, almost creamy, but also a tad stale – one was a bit grey inside.

Kind of crispy edges but not as crispy as they look. Not bad, I guess. But not a patch on the ones on their Instagram page. Funny that.

The Yorkshire pudding was fresh, crispy and decent enough – some vague taste of egg.

Then the pork belly was…kind of disappointing. Well, not really kind of, it was disappointing.

It was a chunky piece of pork, and more porchetta than pork belly given that it was stuffed with herbs. But it was overcooked, lacked any tenderness and was quite dry too. The crackling was almost non-crispy, bar maybe 2cm which was like proper crackling, gooey and crunchy. Plus for a piece of pork belly, it was surprisingly un-fatty – though my father complained that his was too fatty. Happy 75th birthday, Dad! Remember, if it wasn’t for my parents having a cuddle many years ago and speaking the the storks, there would be nobody existing to write a roast dinner blog, and you’d be surviving on wherever the influencers have been given a freebie to be told where to go.

And the gravy was alright, quite a sticky style, and verged on the yacky by the end – some meaty vibes going on so the flavour was pretty decent.

1 Lombard Street

So 1 Lombard Street does a decent enough roast, though maybe you might expect more for £35.00, especially when Blacklock is a good £10.00 less – or The Libertine is around the corner.

The highlights were mostly the vegetables, especially the cauliflower cheese which was top notch. Also props to allowing my mother to order a child’s portion instead of wasting half the plate…though that did also mean that I didn’t get a side portion of beef.

For me, the pork belly let it down – too overcooked and dry, though your preferences may vary – it was still alright. I’m told the beef was good, if nothing outstanding.

Scores around the table were healthier than mine – an 8.00 from both of those eating beef, a 7.80 from the birthday-celebrating father who found the pork belly too fatty (the opposite of what I thought!).

My score is a 7.22 out of 10 – good enough, though you’d expect something a little more for £35.00 in my not very humble opinion because I am right.

Another £35.00 roast dinner booked for next weekend…and it doesn’t even come with roast potatoes.

Ohhhhh…they called it Sunday lunch.