Wild meat and vegan Yorkshire puddings: the restaurants taking Sunday roasts to a new level
Sunday lunch at Kricket in White City, London, is, in many ways, a classic roast. The key elements are there: juicy roast pork belly with crispy skin, golden roasties, sprouts and gravy. And yet… as I bite into the potatoes, subtly spiced with cumin and curry leaf, dip a pumpkin half-moon into the masala gravy, and scoop up a forkful of mustard-spiced greens and shredded Brussels (all pictured above), it’s clear that we’re in new territory.
Kricket’s Sunday lunch is one of a growing band of “new roasts”. Restaurants such as Ceviche, Native and Brigadiers, all in London, are also offering exciting twists on Sunday lunch, which helps to lure diners through the doors during one of the week’s most competitive sittings: when restaurants are up against pubs as well as each other.
Peruvian restaurant Ceviche in Shoreditch now serves pollo a la brasa – rotisserie-style chicken – every day of the week. “It is a very common dish for Peruvian families to have on a Sunday,” says Daniel Ribeiro, Ceviche’s executive chef. Ceviche’s chefs marinade the birds with amarillo chilli and spices, and serve them with roast sweet potato wedges or chips (find the recipe, tweaked for home cooks, below).
Native, a London restaurant that specialises in foraged foods and game, has launched a monthly “wild roast”. Seasonal meat such as venison is served as a communal feast, while trimmings can include roast potatoes with mugwort or heritage carrots with a seaweed salsa verde. Even in midwinter, there are plenty of foraged foods to add interest to a roast, say Ivan Tisdall-Downes and Imogen Davis, Native’s founders. “We use juniper berries, crab apple and rowan berries, and make pine-needle salt for a dry rub on lamb.”
Restaurants are after the vegan (and vegetarian) pound, too. Greens in Manchester does a vegan roast with a pecan and hazelnut or red lentil loaf and all the trimmings – including Yorkshire puds. Kricket offers a weekly meat-free roast, such as roasted broccoli, kori-spiced mushrooms or delica pumpkin.
Roasts are more flexible than you might think. Just ask The Telegraph’s cookery writer, Diana Henry, whose book A Bird in the Hand contains enough twists for a month of Sundays (lemon grass and turmeric roast chicken, Indonesian roast spiced chicken, caraway roast potatoes).
“Roast meats work well with Indian spices,” says Kricket’s Will Bowlby. “White meats like chicken work particularly well with lighter spices like fenugreek and turmeric. Red meats take on spices even better and, at this time of year, we like to pair spices like peppercorns, cloves, star anise, Kashmiri chilli and saffron with game.”
Is tinkering with the classics a risky move, or does novelty give pubs and restaurants a competitive edge? The Lygon Arms in Worcestershire certainly thinks it’s the latter. The Cotswolds inn has introduced “Wellington Sundays”, with a trolley of venison, salmon and vegetarian Wellingtons wheeled around the dining room. “We wanted to offer something a little different,” says Ed Fitzpatrick, its deputy general manager.
The new roasts might not win a purist’s approval. But for curious diners, there’s never been a better time to tuck into Sunday lunch – whether you’re eating out, or cooking at home, thanks to the simple, inventive recipes below supplied by the chefs from Kricket, Greens and Ceviche.
Five ways to jazz up your roast
Give a lamb or beef joint an Indian spice rub or marinade. “Start a couple days in advance to allow the marinade to penetrate the meat as best it can,” says Will Bowlby.
Make Yorkshire pudding more nutritious by switching half your white flour for quinoa flour, as pioneered at Ceviche. The restaurant also sprinkles cooked black quinoa on top for texture and crunch.
“Make a delicious foraged jelly to complement your meat,” suggest Ivan Tisdall-Downes and Imogen Davis. “You can easily find crab apples early in the year, along with rowan berries and hawthorn berries. These are high in pectin, so you only need a little sugar.”
A few easy tweaks can make most of your roast suitable for vegans. Switch from animal fat to vegetable oil for just-as-golden roasties. You can even make Yorkshire pudding without eggs, as they do at Greens, where they use soya milk. Adding a little warm water to the batter helps them rise (see the recipe in the box below, and other recipes online).
Feeling adventurous? “Gather acorns* or chestnuts to make stuffing,” suggests the Native team. Or grind up clean pine needles in a pestle and mortar, then add a little salt. Use in moderation for a dry-rub on lamb. “They’re fragrant like rosemary, with a hint of citrus.”
*Acorns should only be eaten when brown, not green, and need to be treated before eating. The Woodland Trust has a useful guide on how to do this (woodlandtrust.org.uk).
