The Best Sunday Roasts In North West England
Published 19 November 2024

It feels only right that the Blacklock group's first port of call as it heads into regional orbit should be Manchester, where thoroughbred meat cookery has become a speciality. Housed in the cavernous basement of a former textile mill on Peter Street, the ambience calls up the city's industrial past, but with candle-flames, soft leather seating and smiling staff to give the exposed brickwork and cast-iron pillars a gentler feel.

Followers of the London venues will find a comfortingly familiar ring to the menus, which open with protein snacks such as potted meats with kimchi to prime the appetite. A fully loaded steak sarnie makes a more satisfying lunch than a supermarket sub, as does a whopping double cheeseburger, its onions caramelised in vermouth. Blackboard menus give notice of the cuts of the day, and you can see them being crossed off as they are snapped up. Vintage Blacklock irons grill the chops to blushing pink for skinny cuts of pork rib and lamb T-bone, while the fat-marbled steaks are fully matured for 55 days.

The ‘all in’ sharing deal is a mound of chops, piled on chargrilled flatbreads, but leave room for beef-dripping chips and perhaps a superfood side-order of broccoli and walnut salad. Sauces, charged extra, run the gamut from chilli hollandaise to the richly nutritious house gravy. The undoubted appetite challenge of it all extends to a ‘say-when’ dessert of white chocolate cheesecake, served straight into bowls at the table.

Blacklock is also famed for its nostalgic Sunday lunch. Whole joints are roasted the old-fashioned way and the revelling continues through the day – be warned, bookings are at a premium. If you're in a group, order the ‘all in’ offer of three different meats with sides, veg and limitless gravy. Wines on tap include the big reds that this food will mostly need.

In one of Stockport's more comely corners, Fold is a wine merchant out front and an umami dealer at the back. Generously proportioned seasonal snacks and sharing plates are loaded with ingredients that fill the 'fifth taste' bingo card. Truffles, pickles, black garlic and aged cheeses are deployed with a liberal hand, while Sunday lunch brings prime cuts 'fire-roasted over bincho embers' (check out the aged beef bavette with 'Yorkie bits' and smoked salt plus a wagyu-fat potato slice).

A house favourite from the open kitchen that lines the back wall is the spring onion bhaji (green and pleasingly straggly in its spiced batter with a Westmorland smoked Cheddar sauce), and the ooze of a puffy, hot flatbread bathed in pork fat and topped with seedy dukkah indicates riches to come. Autumn slaw with hazelnuts, truffle and aged Parmesan is a veg dish with real savour and presence, while charred hispi cabbage comes with mussels in a pokey 'curry mile' sauce – one of several nods to the wider locale. To conclude, the 'Fold-teaser' – malted mousse and ice cream with caramel and crushed Maltesers – brooks no arguments, but maintains elegance in the snappiness of its chocolate shell and piles of airy mousse.

The relaxed dining room (complete with mid-century modern furniture) feels all-day versatile, and while service definitely needs sharpening, the wine list is already on point. Drinkers with an interest in global curiosities and natural techniques will find some great matches – and they can always pick up a bottle to take home.

Cumbrian native Kevin Tickle was Simon Rogan’s head forager at L’Enclume then head chef at Forest Side in Grasmere. Heft sits halfway between his two former employers, which he runs with his wife Nicola (front-of-house). The name refers to the seriousness of the operation (an 11-course taster is all that’s available in the dining room for dinner), but it's also an old Cumbrian word for sheep returning to the same fells for grazing and shelter; a reference, perhaps, to what remains of the village pub where locals can return for soup by the fire in the front bar.

There’s no doubt, however, that the restaurant is the true destination here, a low-key room of generously spaced Scandinavian-style furniture enclosed by ancient whitewashed walls and, on the other side, an open kitchen partially visible to diners. Some courses are delivered by chefs through the gap in the wall but most by smartly turned-out young locals. An opening shot of ‘Gotty’s squeaky cheese’, a lozenge of Matt Gott's halloumi glazed in thyme honey, sets the tone for much of what is to come – proudly Cumbrian ingredients supplied by producers the Tickles know personally, and transformed into what readers have called 'an intensity of flavour' that transcends their seasonal and local tags. Expect anything from damsons gown in Nicola’s home patch of the Rusland Valley to Herdwick hogget from Town Head Farm in Grasmere – although ingredients from further afield also have their say.

Courses arrive in quick succession, so the sensation is less of a tasting menu and more of a constant flow of miniature deliciousness. A dinky bowl of chawanmushi-style egg custard is flavoured with richly savoury oxtail and thyme and topped with an enoki mushroom. Mussels are skewered on a sort of giant toothpick, glazed in XO and mead to deliver a wallop of umami, all smeared with ‘chip shop curry sauce’ that is far more sophisticated than its inspiration. Scorched monkfish tastes smoky but the creamily textured flesh shimmers with a pearlescent sheen.

An 'exceptional-value' four-course lunch also wins praise, and they serve a mean sausage roll in the dog-friendly bar, along with pizza on Wednesday nights, local cask beer and a good selection of wine by the glass – plus inspired Sunday roasts that take the traditional theme to ‘a whole new level’. No wonder everyone leaves impressed, whether they’ve come from down the road or the opposite end of the country.

Image credit: Jenny Jones

On the Eastgate rows in the centre of Chester, Shrub specialises in plant-based cooking with a Mediterranean emphasis, illuminated here and there with east Asian seasonings. The room is expansive and relaxing, with lots of sustainable wood, rattan lampshades and fake foliage lending a gentle touch of urban pastoral. Staff are highly clued up and helpful at filling in any gaps the menu specs might expose, although much of it pushes the on-trend buttons for voguish vegan cookery.

Start with meze and small-plate selections to see how you go. Courgettes barbecued over coals acquire a deliciously lingering smokiness, and are accompanied by spicy tomato sambal and toasted coconut. The onion bhajis with tamarind and green chutney have rightly been a menu stalwart since Shrub opened in 2020, while artichoke 'wings' (we used to call them hearts) come with a dressing raunched up with Aleppo pepper and garlic mayo. A wine and miso dressing with pumpkin tortellini was everything our umami receptors could wish for, and made up for a rather heavy texture in the pasta parcels themselves. Gnocchi with sugar snaps, rocket and sorrel pesto is an appetising study in green, while sides include Szechuan fries with spring onion and chilli.

After that, something soothing such as chocolate and mint cheesecake should fit the bill. Shrub also does it own creative plant-based take on the Sunday roast: oyster mushroom Wellington is the main event, accompanied by a vegan ‘yorkie’, charred cabbage, assorted veg, seasonal purée and gravy. ‘You miss nothing and gain everything,’ noted one fan. Fragrant cocktails and no-waste infusions add to the drinks list, which also has characterful wines by the glass from £6.50.

*Solo will close its doors for a complete refurb after lunch service on 27 July 2025. Re-opening at the beginning of November 2025.*

Tim Allen moved some 250 miles from his former post at the Flitch of Bacon in Essex to set up Solo, his first independent venture. The erstwhile roadside pub is warmly welcoming and comfortable, tables are well spaced, chairs padded and two blazing fires were 'much appreciated' on a wet autumn evening when we visited. Service is relaxed (as is the atmosphere), but it's clear that this is a serious operation. It's a brilliant local asset, too – the no-choice set lunch is excellent value for the quality on offer.

The chef's cooking has confidence, his ideas speak of maturity, and you get the impression that he spends every spare moment trying out new ideas – his six-course evening taster (including vegetarian and pescatarian versions) changes regularly with the emphasis firmly on local and regional ingredients. You might begin with perfectly al dente agnolotti filled with spinach and dressed with a Parmesan foam, sweetcorn, a lightly poached quail’s egg and a rich brown chicken jus, then proceed to Cornish brill with diced salt-baked celeriac, ceps and smoked eel in a lovage-infused sauce.

Cauliflower, heady with Madras spices and the sweet-sour flavours of lentil dhal with lime buttermilk, has the making of a signature dish, while tender Aynhoe Park venison loin, paired with beetroot and red verjus, was evidence of the use of top-quality produce. A riff on raspberries teamed with caramelised white chocolate and verbena could be one of a pair of desserts.

On Sundays, Allen cleverly weaves a traditional roast in a mini four-course taster that is refined enough to wow but served with 'zero pretentiousness'. There is plenty of decent drinking by the glass on a short, global wine list that includes some skin-contact, organic and biodynamic bottles.

*Chef Nina Matsunaga has launched a new restaurant concept, Tsuchi, at The Black Bull. Look out for a new review coming soon.*

Geographically, Sedbergh is part of the Yorkshire Dales, although it sits on the edge of the Lake District. Something of that dual identity informs the layout of this revamped coaching inn, which accommodates two very different spaces with two very different personalities. To the left as you go in is the cosy, convivial pub room – our preferred spot – complete with a bar, equine paraphernalia, dried flower displays, bright red banquettes and fairy lights strung around the walls. Here you can sup local ales and get welcome sustenance from platters of home-cooked ham and artisan cheese, hot Herdwick lamb sandwiches, maple pea houmous or Mansergh Hall pork and kimchi stew.

To the right are the dining areas, the first being a dog-friendly antechamber, the second a sparser, more formal split-level affair. The menu highlights local produce but there’s a noticeable Asian bent to the more ambitious dishes: expect Howgill Hereford beef pie with seasonal greens alongside crispy Korean beef wrapped in a shiso leaf or pork belly in XO sauce with alliums. To finish, there might be an 'extremely savoury’ black-sesame panna cotta with basil oil and shards of sesame cracker. On Sundays, prime meat sourced from local herds is the kitchen's USP, accompanied by sides including treacle carrots.

Service is well-meaning, although it seems better suited to the pub side of things than the restaurant. However, the Black Bull’s drinks offer gets full marks, from unusually pleasing ‘softs’ including Zingi Bear (an organic ginger switchel) to fascinating sips from Slovakia, Slovenia and Serbia on the diverse, good-value wine list. A new outdoor bar and kitchen facility should add to the Black Bull's all-round appeal.