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

Readers love the ‘imaginative, beautifully presented food’, excellent service and ‘exceptional value for money’ on offer at this cool independent, adding that it's a ‘welcome addition to Totterdown’ and feels a world apart from the noise and traffic of the city. It's not too cool though. This is a neighbourhood joint where you're welcome to drop in for a snack and an early-evening cocktail, while Sunday means roasts for lunch – although these are given highly distinctive, ‘experimental’ treatment (think smoked short rib with wasabi mustard or Middle White pork belly with black garlic and miso).

Chef Jack Briggs-Horan's inventive and constantly changing menu is a head-spinning mash-up of eclectic global flavours and surprising textures. Dishes such as 'daikon piccata' with green beans, tomato/peanut sauce and green harissa may sound wacky but they (mostly) taste delicious. Care is taken to use local, seasonal ingredients and the kitchen boasts an open fire, where smoked and charred components add an extra dimension to dishes ranging from burrata with chicory, pickled blackcurrant and 'wonderful' smoked beetroot to larger plates of smoked goat with tandoori carrot, blood-orange pickle and black garlic.

Snacks and desserts also get the open-flame treatment – from charred olives to a whipped, burnt Basque cheesecake served with charred strawberries and Szechuan syrup. The short, keenly priced wine list is augmented by an enticing selection of unusual cocktails, local beers and ciders. Visit at lunchtime or early evening to take advantage of the good-value fixed-price menus.

‘A family feel, everyone welcome, great food and great beer line-up,’ the stone-built, 15th-century Kew Inn aims to satisfy all the requirements of a village hostelry in the 21st century. Inside there’s a traditional bar with St Austell ales and others on tap, plus four dining areas, all imbued with an air of country-inn conviviality. Outside is a stunning garden area dotted with mature trees in the shadow of the village church. The kitchen offers a broad choice across the board, whether you’re in the market for a ploughman’s, curried crab rarebit, moules marinière or something more adventurous – perhaps crispy buttermilk monkfish with katsu sauce or the ‘superb’ smoked short rib with champ mash and piri-piri hispi cabbage. To finish, the lemon meringue posset or the s’more toasted marshmallow with chocolate sauce and cherry syrup might tempt – otherwise plump for a plate of West Country cheeses with poached pear and candied walnuts. Sunday roasts come with their time-honoured seasonal accompaniments. In addition to Cornish ales and ciders, the drinks list also takes in some well-chosen mainstream wines.

Originally named because it was the last coaching inn before Cornwall, this extensively refurbished Devon hostelry has shaken off any geographical confusion and now plies its trade as a lively venue for all-comers at the heart of the old stannary town of Tavistock. ‘I will never tire of eating in their restaurant or just popping in for a relaxing drink,’ observed one regular. Whether you’re after a pint in the garden with a Scotch egg or a full three-course dinner ahead of an overnight stay, there’s ‘utter consistency’ across the board and the attention to detail is mightily impressive. Creative small plates such as beef-brisket croquettes with Asian pickles and firecracker mayo open the show, ahead of a broadly based selection of main courses mixing traditional pub fare with modern classics – everything from all-battered Cornish haddock to poached and roasted lamb belly with devilled kidneys, lamb-fat onion, spiced aubergine and lamb gravy. Fans dote on the Sunday lunch, while desserts might offer Yorkshire strawberry trifle with kalamansi sorbet. A drinker-friendly wine list is arranged by style.

‘So consistent, cosy and welcoming,’ commented one regular visitor to this fine old 16th-century inn a short detour from some of the National Park’s best trails. Since taking over in 2019, the Barker-Jones family have given the oak-beamed, slate-floored interior a satisfying makeover, with lots of attention to detail (note the lovely hand-painted photos on the walls). ‘You would feel welcome to just pop in for a drink,’ noted a reporter, but it would be a sin to miss the pub’s main attraction – its menu of carefully sourced local and seasonal food.

The kitchen delivers ‘deep full-on flavours’ across the board, from hunks of warm home-baked bread with Netherend butter and bowls of verdant pea soup topped with seasonal ramsons to panna cotta with rhubarb and shortbread or treacle tart given extra zing with confit orange, candied zest and crystallised ginger ice cream. In between, Jail Ale-battered haddock with triple-cooked chips is a winner, likewise the cider-braised West Country pork fillet and the stone bass and Teignmouth mussels with fennel, samphire and mussel velouté. It’s also worth working up an appetite for the effusively praised Sunday lunch with its offer of roast moorland sirloin and the like. 

Service from really professional, welcoming staff is all you could wish for, as is the wide-ranging drinks list, which covers everything from local Dartmoor Ale to classic cocktails and a small but varied list of mostly Old World wines.

Readers were quick to alert us to the transformation of the former Black Horse and how good the food was. Now a stylish restaurant with rooms, an early look found us settled in the very pubby bar with a drink, the cosiness that only a beamed ceiling, wingback chairs and an inglenook fireplace can induce willing us to settle in for the night. We could, of course, have stayed put and ordered from the full carte but then we would have missed the rather chic dining room.

Located in a newly built wood-clad extension, floor-to-ceiling windows look out onto a heated terrace and small garden. Exposed brick walls hung with modern art and two back-to-back brushed black leather banquettes lend the room a sophisticated metropolitan feel, while a picture window into the kitchen, framed by a display of fine wines and stemware, signals the pub’s serious gastronomic intent.

Jordan Taylor’s CV takes in Restaurant Gordon Ramsay and Moor Hall and that high-end pedigree is evident in a menu that celebrates produce from the estate and other local suppliers. Our meal produced a visually stunning terrine of estate game – layers of breast of pigeon, pheasant and partridge surrounded by a chicken mousse flavoured with dried apricot, fermented cep and tarragon – and tasted as good as it looked. And we enjoyed a generous loin of estate hare wrapped in cabbage, served with celeriac fondant, purée and remoulade, plus roasted hen of the woods and a copper pan of leg ragu on the side.

But among all the culinary fireworks, Taylor hasn’t forgotten that he is also cooking for a local community of regulars and offers a hearty Sunday roast (Great Durnford lamb, Springbottom Farm beef, served with crisp roast potatoes and roots, spiced creamed kale and fluffy Yorkshire pudding), as well as a list of pub classics including battered cod and chips, steaks from the nearby Springbottom Farm, and a very appetising looking burger. And we found service as friendly and enthusiastic as it is polished and professional.

For decades, the Milbrook has defended its reputation as a reliable source of decent pub food in the South Hams but since Caitlin Owens took on ownership in 2021, it has found a new stride. Elegant restoration has amplified the cosy low-ceilinged hostelry into a sophisticated destination, whether you’re staying in the rooms across the road, or rocking up sandy-footed from the beach, ready for a pint of Salcombe Brewery Ocean Cider by the babbling brook at the back.

Beyond good looks, the menu is bolstered by its connection to Fowlescombe – a luxury rural retreat and working regenerative farm – and by Elly Wentworth, who works as executive chef across both sites, balancing prime ingredients with an approachable menu. Brixham crab and fresh corn chowder made for a swoon-worthy opener on our most recent visit, while a Toulouse sausage was packed with flavour and the triple-cooked chips were as good as you’d hope.

Sunday lunches and seasonal desserts such as Fowlescombe farm honey and fig trifle with roasted hazelnuts complete the package, while on dark nights the fireside beckons for a pre- or post-prandial trip through the adventurous wine list, which uses the Coravin system to offer maximum interest by the glass. Service can fluctuate with the seasons but it always supports a convivial hubbub of happy diners.

‘One of the best gravies of any pub we have tried,’ declares an admirably methodical reader: just one nugget of praise for the Sunday roasts at this edge-of-village pub. Most tables in the modernised two-room interior are for diners, though local real ales and bar stools await drinkers. The main menu runs from ‘classic pub plates’ of burgers, fish and chips or Bramley apple crumble to a trio of beetroots with whipped feta, roasted chestnuts and pomegranate dressing and ‘special plates for any occasion’ (whole lemon sole meunière, for example). The staff and atmosphere also attract plaudits: ‘it’s like being wrapped in a big blanket’.