The 19 Best Roasts in London

Not strictly a pub. Hausu is a restaurant and listening bar in the old ticket office at Peckham Rye station, with a vintage hi-fi doing the talking. For its second birthday it has launched a weekly Sunday lunch. Chef and co-founder Holly Middleton-Joseph, formerly of The Camberwell Arms, built it around whole cuts that are cooked over fire, roasted or braised, and served to share. The menu changes weekly with whatever the suppliers have, and it favours the cuts other kitchens skip. The launch list ran to brown sugar and mustard-roasted hare with bacon and tarragon, overnight-braised hogget with turnips and green hot sauce, and ex-dairy beef with black lime and fermented chilli butter. For vegetarians there is mushroom ragu with lentils, porcini mash and truffle cheese. 11a Station Way, SE15 4RX

The clue is in the name. Whole native and rare-breed animals come in from farms between Cornwall and the Hebrides and are butchered on site. Sunday's roast follows whatever arrived that week. Above ground it is all farmhouse tables, church pews and blackboards. The cooking is British and unfussy without tipping into stodge. Roasts run from noon on Sundays. 80 Liverpool Road, N1 0QD

Godet is a wine pub in a revamped Victorian boozer: peach-pink walls, checked curtains, a list by Sylvain Bertozzi of Binch. The kitchen belongs to Ling Ling's, chef Jenny Phung and James Shepherd's long-running "no rules" Chinese pop-up. On Sundays the roast goes through the same filter. Think five spice pork belly with sesame Yorkshires and miso gravy. It reads like a dare. It eats like something you will try to recreate at home and fail. 382 Essex Road, N1 3PF

The Compton Arms is the small Islington pub said to have helped inspire Orwell’s essay on the perfect pub. Rake is the duo in its kitchen: Jay Claus and Syrus Pickhaver, between them ex-Brat, Acme Fire Cult and Quo Vadis. The Sunday plate is pork loin, marinated beef rump or a root vegetable stargazy pie. The sides are the reason to book: leek gratin, white cabbage choucroute and clapshot, the Scottish mash of turnip and potato, here with beef dripping. Roasties, greens and Yorkshires come too. Rake’s final service is 19 December 2026. That leaves eight Sundays. 4 Compton Avenue, N1 2XD

The Baring's owners crossed the river, brought chef Jay Styler with them and won a Michelin star within months. Deep green panelling, emerald leather booths, a house lager. A starred Sunday lunch in a room where nobody minds you taking your coat off. 16 Grove Lane, SE5 8SY

The original. Walk the Regent's Canal first, then sit down to a roast that looks modest on the plate and does not stay modest for long. 55 Baring Street, N1 3DS

London's other Michelin-starred pub, and the one that made wild food and game its business. If venison or something shot in the country is on, have that. Walham Grove, SW6 1QP

A beautiful two-floor pub on a quiet canalside street, sibling to the Tamil Prince. Sunday platters come with turmeric roasties, spiced potato masala, coconut-fried cabbage and a beef dripping masala gravy. 16 Elia Street, N1 8DE

A proper East End boozer downstairs, a serious kitchen above it. The Marksman's reputation was built largely on its Sunday roast, and it has not needed to change the formula. 254 Hackney Road, E2 7SJ

The Hampstead Heath roast. Do Parliament Hill in the morning, arrive pink-cheeked, and earn the Yorkshire. 168 Highgate Road, NW5 1QS

When Franklins closed after 26 years on Lordship Lane, the locals did not take it well. Jamie Younger of The Begging Bowl and Rema Waterhouse, formerly of The Palmerston, took the building over within weeks and restored the name carved in tile above the door. It is a pub again, with the bar downstairs and a dining room upstairs. The cooking is British produce with a French bistro accent, and the wine list leans the same way. The showpiece is a whole roast poulet jaune, served in two parts. There is a martini list for anyone who considers that a side. 157 Lordship Lane, SE22 8HX

London's first fully vegan pub, down to the furniture. Choose between a beet wellington, a walnut and cashew nut roast or slow-roast celeriac with potato "crackling". Committed carnivores have been known to go quiet. 224 Homerton High Street, E9 6AS

An 1830s pub on a residential Barnsbury street, and a fixture of every roast conversation in N1. The sharing roasts are the move: lamb, or a côte de boeuf if there are enough of you. The wine list is reason enough to stay for pudding. It sells out. Book an early sitting, or accept that the beef may have gone by five. 44 Barnsbury Street, N1 1ER

An independent local at the top of Upper Tooting Road. There are cold pints, a back garden with fairy lights and a disco ball, and no pretence. Order the three-meat roast and an extra Yorkshire. Roasts run until 9pm, which suits anyone who treats Sunday lunch as an evening plan. 2 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7PG

The pub that made the sharing roast a south London habit, and a past winner of The Guardian's 50 Best Sunday Lunches. Mains come to the table family-style: a whole spit-roast herb-fed chicken, or a slow-roast lamb shoulder for those who planned ahead. Bring people. Several dishes are strictly for sharing. The Kerfield Arms is a stone's throw away, which makes Camberwell the closest thing London has to a roast district. 65 Camberwell Church Street, SE5 8TR

The Anchor & Hope's south London sibling, and a pub that still looks like a boozer from the front bar. Sunday lunch runs through the kitchen's whole repertoire. The order is the salt marsh lamb shoulder, cooked for seven hours and served with potato gratin and greens. It is built for five. Recruit accordingly. 177 South Lambeth Road, SW8 1XP

Built in 1585, Grade II listed, and claimed by both Dickens and Keats. Also, reportedly, by Dick Turpin, who has not checked out. Low beams, creaking stairs, an open fire and a walled garden with heaters for when the Heath has run out of daylight. The roast is traditional and does not try to compete with the building. It doesn't need to. Walk over from Kenwood and come in muddy. Spaniards Road, NW3 7JJ

A Young's pub on Upper Mall, halfway along the river to Chiswick and some 300 years old. It is awkward to reach from any station, which keeps the queues down. The upstairs terrace has the long view of the Thames bending round Barnes, and the heated tables below cover the colder Sundays. The roast is honest pub cooking done properly. You come for that and the river, in roughly equal measure. 25 Upper Mall, W6 9TD

For the Sunday that calls for marble rather than floorboards. Ned's Feast fills Millie's Lounge in the old Midland Bank with a bottomless spread: oysters, lobster, roasts of every kind, charcuterie, pigs in blankets, a cheese board and around a dozen cakes and puddings. A band plays throughout. It costs £120 a head, or £190 with free-flowing Champagne. Seatings last two hours, between 12pm and 4pm. Under-sixes eat free and six-to-twelves are half price, which is the only arithmetic in this guide that favours bringing the children. 27 Poultry, EC2R 8AJ