Sunday lunch in Hampstead is serious business. From the Bull and Last to the Holly Bush.
The Best Sunday Lunch in Hampstead: Where to Book, When to Arrive, and What to Order
Sunday lunch in Hampstead follows a particular logic. You walk on the Heath in the morning — two hours, Parliament Hill and back, or up to Kenwood if the weather is good — and then you eat. Properly. The sequence is important: the walk earns the meal, and the meal justifies everything that follows, which is usually nothing more strenuous than a second glass of wine and a slow walk home. The question is where to eat. Here are the places that take it seriously.
The Bull and Last, Highgate Road — The Benchmark
The Bull and Last is, by consensus of the serious north London Sunday lunch community, the best roast in the area. The menu rotates on heritage-breed beef, free-range pork, and seasonal game, all sourced from named farms and cooked with the kind of attention that means the Yorkshire puddings are always crisp, the gravy is always made from the roasting juices, and the vegetables — a category that lesser kitchens treat as an afterthought — are considered and well-executed.
The dining room is a well-preserved Victorian pub interior with a properly convivial atmosphere: not the performed warmth of a gastropub chain, but the genuine noise of a room where people are enjoying themselves. Tables are close together, which either bothers you or it doesn't.
Booking: Essential, and often required two to three weeks in advance for Sunday lunch. Book through their website on Tuesday morning when the following weekend opens. The 1pm slot is the most popular; 12:30 or 2pm are easier to get.
Address: 168 Highgate Road, NW5 (technically Dartmouth Park, 15 minutes' walk from Hampstead tube) Price: Around £25-35 per head for food, plus drinks
The Holly Bush, Holly Mount — For Atmosphere
The Holly Bush doesn't have the most technically ambitious food in Hampstead, but it has something more specific: a Sunday lunch experience that feels genuinely right in its setting. The low-ceilinged rooms, the fireplace, the dark panelling — a Sunday roast here in October, with a fire going and a Harvey's Best in hand, is one of those experiences that makes living in north London feel like a reasonable life choice.
The menu is traditional: roast beef, roast chicken, roast pork belly, one vegetarian option. The Yorkshire puddings are house-made and reliable. The roast potatoes are properly crisp. The gravy is not revelatory, but it is consistent. What the Holly Bush offers is not the best single element you can find in Hampstead on a Sunday, but the best combination of food-plus-setting available.
Booking: Accepted and advisable. Walk-ins possible at the bar but not guaranteed a table for food.
Address: Holly Mount, NW3 (up the steep lane off Heath Street — follow the signs or Google Maps, it is genuinely confusing the first time)
Full review in our Holly Bush guide.
The Spaniards Inn, Spaniards Road — Post-Walk Destination
The Spaniards Inn earns its place on this list not through cooking ambition but through logistics. Its position at the northern edge of the Heath — on the path back from Kenwood, 10 minutes from the Vale of Health, 20 minutes from Parliament Hill — makes it the natural destination for a Sunday Heath walk that ends with a meal. The roast is served in the pub's dining room, which is separated from the main bar and has a slightly more formal atmosphere without becoming stiff.
Quality is dependably good rather than exceptional: well-sourced meat, honest vegetables, a decent wine list. The garden is too good to resist in warm weather, which means that summer Sunday lunches at the Spaniards become primarily an outdoor experience with food as an accompaniment rather than the main point. This is not necessarily a criticism.
Booking: Recommended for the dining room. The garden operates as a walk-in.
Address: Spaniards Road, NW3 (at the junction with North End Way)
Full history and review in our Spaniards Inn guide.
Artigiano, Heath Street — Italian Alternative
Not a roast, but worth including for the substantial proportion of people for whom Sunday lunch means Italian food rather than beef and Yorkshire puddings. Artigiano's Sunday menu extends beyond its regular Italian-American offering to include a proper Sunday pasta — a slow-cooked ragù, a hand-rolled pappardelle, something with porcini — that is specific to the day and usually the best thing on the menu. The room is warm and civilised, booking is essential, and the wine list has enough Nebbiolo to make the afternoon go pleasantly.
Booking: Essential, at least a week in advance for Sunday.
Address: Heath Street, NW3
The Wells, Well Walk — The Neighbourhood Option
The Wells, on Well Walk, has the advantage of position: it sits on one of Hampstead's most beautiful streets, five minutes from the Heath, with an outdoor terrace that works well from April to October. The Sunday roast is competently executed and reasonably priced, the atmosphere is reliably busy without being loud, and the likelihood of getting a table with reasonable notice is higher than at the more celebrated options above.
For first-time visitors to Hampstead, the combination of lunch at the Wells with a walk along Well Walk (described in our Well Walk history guide) and then an hour on the Heath makes for a near-perfect introduction to the neighbourhood.
Booking: Recommended but not always necessary. Call ahead.
Practical Advice for Sunday Lunch in Hampstead
Book early for the Bull and Last and Holly Bush — Tuesday morning, two to three weeks ahead. These are the two venues most likely to be full by Thursday for the following Sunday.
Arrive on time — Sunday lunch slots are typically 90 minutes to two hours. Restaurants in this area are not aggressive about turning tables, but arriving late compresses your meal.
Walk first — the Heath in the morning followed by lunch is the correct Hampstead Sunday. The walk from the East Heath Road entrance to Parliament Hill and back takes 90 minutes; Kenwood via the northern Heath adds another hour. Both justify the meal that follows.
Consider the Bull and Last for a special occasion, the Holly Bush for atmosphere, the Spaniards for a post-walk meal, and the Wells for a reliable neighbourhood lunch without the booking pressure.
Related reading: The Holly Bush Pub Guide · The Spaniards Inn Guide · Best Cafés in Hampstead
