10 Best Sunday Roasts In London, 2019

Please note that due to Copyright Trolls, all images have been removed until I can manually review them, one by one, and ensure credit is appropriately displayed. So if the story suddenly makes no sense, then...well...soz.

This is a long process, so please bear with me...it will likely take until the end of 2024 until all images are reviewed and displayed correctly. Sigh.

Please note that this review is from April 20, 2019 and may be out of date...restaurants sometimes get better, get worse, employ a new chef or end up with new management.

A list of the 10 best Sunday roasts in London by someone that has eaten 100+ roasts in London (and yes, actually eaten them unlike most of these types of pages) and actually paid for them…well 98% of them.

Yep, you’ve worked it out, I’m creating occasional puff-pieces for SEO purposes – the first being a list of the 10 best Sunday roasts in London. Or the 10 best roast dinners in London. Oh balls, that’ll be keyword stuffing. Does Google like the word “balls”?

Also, some of you probably cannot be bothered to read 100 different reviews (don’t blame you) and are incapable of realising what a ‘League Of Roasts‘ might be, so maybe this article might actually be helpful. Hell, maybe you’ll even visit one of them?

So here, in full glory is my descending list of the 10 best Sunday roasts in London, as of 2019. Yeah, you’ll get an updated one this time next year.

10 Best Sunday roasts in London

10. The Selkirk, Tooting

The only place that has actually worked out who I was whilst I was there, to the point of advising me that they put heroin in the gravy (erm…I wouldn’t advocate that).

This was a charming little boozer that I got to fully appreciate waiting an hour for my friends to turn up, whilst stuck in the corner spelling the toilet bleach. B L E A C H. Oh I meant, smelling, soz.

Oh yeah and they charged £1 for extra gravy. I’m not selling it so far, am I?

Roast dinner at The Selkirk, Tooting

Highlights included the creamy swede and carrot mash, which I could have had a whole plate of, the best uncrispy roast potatoes ever (hello duck fat) and a rather fabulous gravy, that one could get metaphorically and linguistically high on.

A charming place, with great service and a very good proper roast dinner.

9. Bar & Block, King’s Cross

You’d expect Hawksmoor to be my top steak-house roast dinner, as opposed to a chain owned by Whitbread. Alas, Hawksmoor languishes in the bottom 30 and this chain owned by Whitbread comes in the top 10.

What gives?

It was a boiling hot summer’s day, well into the 30’s – so maybe the air conditioning and the, erm, post-meal toilet entertainment with my Jimmy Savile joke-quoting friend discoloured my judgement.

Roast dinner at Bar & Block, King's Cross

A soft and spongey Yorkshire pudding, tender steak and supremely tasty cauliflower cheese (which I’ve not had in ages).

Looking back, I think maybe I over-rated it slightly, the roasties and gravy being more existent than life-changing, but it is definitely worth a visit.

8. The Duke of Wellington, Notting Hill

The first place that I reviewed in London and the announcement of your new hero. Me, that is. Albeit that I may have failed in my original intention, “I’m kind of hoping that I can get at least a few reviews in without having to resort to talking about drugs, politics or pointless self-defecating humour just to keep you interested”. Yeah that went well, you drugged-up Article-50-revoking tosser.

The only place that I’ve been offered turkey on my adventures, it came with exquisite stuffing and an ordinary pig-in-blanket – if that can really be ordinary.

Roast dinner at The Duke of Wellington, Notting Hill

Roasted beetroot and plenty of herbs gave it a touch of originality. And proper gravy. I was off to a flying start. Alas, I was newly unemployed and reviews were rare for a short while.

7. Dessert Deli, Clapham Junction

Dessert Deli is the only roast on the list that I got for free, cooked by the wonderful Laura Amos in her kitchen in Clapham, who is better known for her amazing cakes. Trust me on that!

It’s also an unusual one – they are rare events and listed on her website, which at the time of writing is undergoing refurbishment. Who knows, maybe they will never happen again. Maybe I got lucky?

All the cooking is done in her kitchen, it is BYOB and there are a collection of her friends and randoms around the table.

Roast dinner at Dessert Deli, Clapham Junction

Food was spot on – perfectly roasted carrots, wonderful meat – especially the plump corn-fed chicken, and proper gravy. And far, far too much food – I took home enough for Monday and Tuesday too.

6. Smith’s Of Smithfield, Farringdon

The only really proper restaurant in this list, and boy did I feel under-dressed in my scruffy shorts. That said, I was made to feel welcome and at home – and it wasn’t excessively expensive for a more upmarket place. Almost an event location.

Roast dinner at Smith's Of Smithfield, Farringdon

It came with 5, yes 5, really good, properly crispy roast potatoes, a Yorkshire pudding made more for your mouth than your social media account and really succulent corn-fed chicken.

Even better than that – they didn’t have any vegetarian meals on the menu. In love! Oh and I fell in love with the waitress too. Possible why it scored an 8.5

5. The Dove, Hammersmith

Another place where I fell in love with the waitress, but also the setting – sat in the small garden at the fag-end of summer, next to the River Thames. Perfect for having a few afternoon drinks, though weirdly I wasn’t drinking that day.

Five types of vegetables were provided, and the cabbage was particularly enjoyable. The yorkie was made both for Insta and my heart, and it came with proper gravy instead of that jus crap.

Roast dinner at The Dove, Hammersmith

But the star of the show was the lamb, shoulder shank with hints of fennel – ever so succulent, perfectly cooked and the kind of thing you could orgasm over. Well, I could. Well, I could when I was younger and hornier, anyway.

How many more of these do I have to write? Oh for a marketing department.

4. The Old Red Cow, Farringdon

For a long time this was my number one roast in town, and thoroughly deserving of it too.

A small pub which we needed to book a couple of weeks in advance, we had exceptional service – so good that we all hugged her on the way out as if she was a long-lost friend (yes we’d had a few beers).

Roast dinner at The Old Red Cow, Farringdon

And the food was awesome too – the lamb in particular was a taste sensation though I really enjoyed the garlicky kale too. The real highlight was the excellent gravy – so hard to find in London, but a wonderful, proper meat-stock gravy that a Yorkshire chef would be proud of.

So much love for this place.

3. The Gipsy Queen, Kentish Tavern

The most recently-reviewed place on my list, in not exactly the most salubrious area and with a totally uninspiring photograph of their roast dinner on their website, expectations weren’t exactly up there.

Roast dinner at The Gipsy Queen, Kentish Tavern

Very good roast potatoes – properly crispy, with very good veg too.

We received a normal-sized Yorkshire pudding – oh the beauty of it, properly eggy and fluffy – how yorkies used to be before social media ruined them.

The rib-eye beef was close to divine, and the gravy was thick. Who cares what gravy tastes like, as long as it is thick. Though it was a hearty meat stock gravy and met my requirements fully.

And rocket. Don’t hate the rocket, you losers.

2. The Little Blue Door, Fulham

Well it was my birthday and a I took a risk and booked The Little Blue Door in Fulham – they advertised a homemade-style roast which sold it to me.

More known as a quirky bar than somewhere to eat, this could have gone very wrong – I could have had many disappointed birthday guests.

One thing did go wrong – and that was the presentation, with all 12 roast dinners arriving on one serving platter. Annoying.

But the food more than made up for it – the gravy in particular was amazing, thick, creamy, white wine gravy – really quite sensational. On my birthday too!

Roast dinner at The Little Blue Door, Fulham

We had the best ever carrots, best ever Yorkie – and it came with stuffing and pigs in blankets. Small improvements could make it the best roast dinner in London. And the venue itself is so quirky, unusual and really needs to be visited. Especially the toilets. Maybe I should quit writing this blog and just go there every Sunday?

Actually don’t answer that.

And Bully’s Special Prize…

1. The George, The Strand

Whenever I meet people and talk about this blog, they always ask where the best Sunday roast in London is. And when I tell them, more often than not I get a blank look.

I had no expectations upon visiting, I don’t even know why it was on my to-do list in the first place.

Yet they got everything right and more. Crispy roast potatoes, fluffy Yorkshire pudding, amazingly plump chicken, thick yet quite rich gravy. Everything was as you’d expect, which happens oh so rarely.

Roast dinner at The George, Strand.  The best Sunday roast in London.

But the one thing that roast dinners are crying out for is some inventiveness. This came in the form of a delicious parsnip and mustard seed mash which really was quite wow – and creative.

And the cauliflower and leek cheese, which admittedly was a sidedish that we’d ordered, was the best cauliflower cheese that I’d had in London.

End of list

So that concludes my 10 best Sunday roasts in London, 2019 edition. Oh I’m such a sell-out. But Google’s gonna love me now.

Of course, I’ve only been to 101 venues at the time of writing, so I could very easily be missing out on some amazing places – two of the top three have been from 2019. I’d be shocked if I didn’t put Blacklock in the top 10 when I finally get around to visiting.

It should also be remembered that my score is only relevant for my visit – whilst you’d expect most really good venues to keep standards up, chefs leave, pubs get taken over – I cannot promise you that you’ll get the same experience that I did. That said, I’m very confident that you’d be impressed if you visited any of these.

Do you agree with my list? Or more importantly, disagree? Is there anywhere I am missing that I really need to check out?

Keep following my adventures – the journey has only just begun.

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10 Best Sunday Roasts In London, 2019

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Where now, sailor?

Random roast review: The Narrowboat, Islington

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