The Roast Potato Test

If you judge a Sunday lunch pub by a single thing, make it the roast potatoes. They tell you almost everything about how the kitchen operates. A proper roastie should be crisp and slightly shattered at the edges, fluffy and steaming inside, and dark gold rather than pale. If it arrives soft and greasy, or worse, has clearly been sitting in a warming tray since noon, the rest of the plate will rarely redeem it.

Listen, too, when you bite. A good roast potato has a faint resistance before it gives way — that's the sign of a potato par-boiled, roughed up in the pan and roasted in hot fat, not oil. Look for floury varieties: Maris Piper, King Edward, Rooster. Waxy potatoes have their place in a salad, but not beside a joint of beef.

You can often spot the difference before you even order. Glance at plates coming back to the kitchen. If the potatoes are pale and glossy, order something else.

The Meat, Cooked with Patience

The centrepiece deserves scrutiny. Good roast beef should be pink in the middle and sliced reasonably thick, not shaved into transparency. Lamb should pull apart with a fork but still hold its shape. Pork needs crackling that actually cracks — if you can bend it, it's been steamed, not roasted. Chicken ought to have properly rendered skin rather than a damp, pale surface.

Ask about the sourcing if it isn't on the menu. A pub that knows its butcher will tell you readily, and often will tell you the breed. That enthusiasm is a reliable signal. Pubs serving roast dinners at scale on a Sunday are cooking dozens of joints; the ones that do it well are usually limiting the menu rather than offering six roasts and doing none of them properly.

• Beef: pink, rested, carved to order where possible
• Lamb: shoulder is more forgiving than leg, and better suited to slow cooking
• Pork: crackling that shatters, apple sauce made in-house
• Chicken: golden skin, and a decent chipolata tucked under the bacon

Gravy: Generous, and Worth the Wait

There is no such thing as too much gravy, only too little jug. A good pub brings it separately, hot, in a jug you can actually pour from — not a thimbleful drizzled on the plate by a chef with a squeeze bottle and a sense of restraint.

The gravy itself should taste of the meat it accompanies. Beef gravy should be dark and rich, made from the roasting tin with a splash of something alcoholic and a long simmer. If it tastes of nothing but stock cubes and cornflour, you'll know by the second mouthful.

Also watch for the Yorkshire pudding. It should be risen, crisp at the rim, and slightly soft at the base where the gravy has reached it. A flat, pale disc suggests a batter made in a hurry or an oven not hot enough. In Yorkshire, they'll serve it as a starter with onion gravy; elsewhere, it belongs on the plate, and a decent pub will offer a second one without being asked.

Vegetables That Haven't Been Boiled to Death

This is where many otherwise decent pubs fall down. Frozen peas are forgivable in February. Carrots boiled to the texture of wet cardboard are not. Look for vegetables with a bit of bite and a bit of colour — purple sprouting broccoli in spring, greens with butter and nutmeg in winter, red cabbage braised with apple and vinegar alongside pork.

Cauliflower cheese is a fine addition, provided the sauce hasn't split and the top has seen actual heat. Stuffing should be herby and savoury, not a slab of grey crumb. And horseradish or mustard should be sharp enough to make you sit up — the jars left on the table are often a quiet giveaway.

If you're vegetarian, be wary. A nut roast can be excellent, but it needs the same care as the meat: well-seasoned, properly textured, with its own gravy. Too many pubs still treat it as an afterthought, and it shows.

Atmosphere and Pace

A good Sunday pub should feel unhurried. That doesn't mean slow service — it means nobody is hovering to turn your table. You should be able to linger over a second pint, order a pudding you don't need, and leave feeling that the afternoon belonged to you rather than the rota.

Look for tables with proper space between them, a fire in winter, and a mix of people: families with children, couples reading the papers, a few regulars at the bar. A pub that only serves Sunday lunch to booked-in diners and empties by three o'clock has missed the point.

Noise matters too. If the room is so loud you can't hear your companions, the meal will suffer regardless of how good the potatoes are.

Before You Book

• Serving times: a pub that serves until 6pm is usually more relaxed than one that stops at 3pm sharp
• Booking policy: walk-ins at the bar are a good sign of a pub that values its locals
• Menu length: a short, focused roast menu beats a long, ambitious one
• Real ale: a rotating guest tap or two suggests a landlord who cares about more than margin
• Price: around £16–£22 for a main is the going rate in most of the country; much less and corners are being cut

Get those things right and you'll find the sort of pub worth walking to on a grey Sunday — one where the roast arrives hot, the gravy comes in a jug, and nobody minds if you stay for one more.