We Ranked Every Serious London Sunday Roast
Fourteen roasts, four editors, one very long month. The results, ranked, with tables you can actually book.
The brief
A serious roast is a technical exercise: good meat, real gravy, a potato that has been treated with respect, and a room that will let you sit in it for three hours. Here is where London gets it right, by neighbourhood.
The heavyweights
The Cadogan Arms, Chelsea — the benchmark. Proper beef, proper trolley energy, and a bar worth arriving early for.
The Hollywood Arms and The Butcher's Hook, Chelsea — the local versions, cheaper, nearly as good, considerably easier to book.
West
The Cock & Bottle and The Hillgate, Notting Hill: small rooms, short menus, no drama. The Elgin for the version with a terrace.
East and south
The Prince George, Dalston, for the neighbourhood roast that doesn't oversell itself. Prince of Peckham for the roast with the best playlist in London. The Woolpack, Bermondsey, for the walk along the Beer Mile afterwards.
North
Lock Tavern and The Hawley Arms, Camden — roast, canal, market, pint, in whatever order the day suggests.
The rules of a good roast
Book for two o'clock, not one. Order the beef unless the chicken is for two. If the gravy arrives in a jug and the potatoes squeak, you are in the right place.