Manchester's best alternative roast dinners

Cane & Grain mean business when it comes to their Cajun roast offering. Served on a tray (all the better for preventing bourbon gravy spillage), you can choose from three options: Cajun butter roast chicken, bone-in smoked pork belly or Cajun roast cauliflower. It comes with all of the expected accoutrements, just with an added kick; like tiki salt roasties, cheese and jalapeño cornbread, honey roasted carrots and chilli and garlic collard greens. These are understandably quite popular, so we’d recommend booking in advance.

Totally informal when it comes to everything except the presentation of its incredible Caribbean food, customers can choose from the cosy wood-clad interior, or the equally cool covered terrace on Barlow Moor Road. Menu-wise, their ‘hench box’ is the main attraction, a loaded combo of mains and sides. And if you want to switch up your usual Sunday pub grub, their reggae roast seriously delivers when it comes to jerk-infused traditional favourites.

‘Agora’ – meaning ‘a gathering place’ in Ancient Greek – is Fenix’s take on the Sunday dinner, bringing a Mykonos vibe to to Sunday roast. Central to the menu is a traditional lamb leg ‘en clave’ which is cooked for hours in a clay enclosure and designed for sharing. The show-stopping lamb is then carved table-side and served with a rich lamb sauce. Also on the menu is a grilled sea bass, roasted on the robata grill, with lime-turmeric dressing and a cauliflower steak with roasted vegetable cream and pickled fennel. All the Sunday dishes will be served with traditional Greek sides including fresh pitas, tzatziki, spicy roasted cabbage and a Mykonian Salad.

A Sunday roast is not the meal in which to practice moderation, and you better believe that Kong’s understood the brief. They have created their very own roast dinner where fried chicken takes centre stage. Taking everything that’s made them so popular over turning it into the nation’s favourite meal is a genius move. The roast features Kong’s signature fried chicken thigh topped with their crispy chicken skin, sweet potato mash, crispy roast potatoes, vegetables and a massive Yorkshire pudding, all smothered with their homemade chicken gravy. It’s available every Sunday from 2pm at their place in the NQ.

Pull Up Bar & Cafe over on Swan Street, that stretch right on the cusp of the Northern Quarter and Ancoats, well they do a banging reggae roast on Sundays, featuring lemon and thyme roast jerk chicken, carrots, plantain, rice ‘n’ peas, mac and cheese and their signature spicy gravy. They also offer a vegan (and gluten free) rasta roast with roast pumpkin, carrots, sweet potato wedges, fried plantain, rice ‘n’ peas and veggie gravy. Not ready for the weekend to end? Wash it down with something from their extensive cocktail menu, like a Guinness punch or ginger mojito.

Inspired by the likes of The Ned in London, famed for its Sunday feasting, as well as the laidback island dining in Ibiza, this is not your standard Sunday fare. Start with expertly crafted sushi and salads, and then move on the main event. The roasts are classics, but they’ve been kicked up a notch – there’s crisp roast chicken, slow-cooked lamb, roast beef and pigs in blankets, as well as vegan specials like sweet potato wellington. Their signature roast potatoes are served straight to the table so they are golden, crisp and fluffy, and there’s trimmings and gravy for days. It costs £25 for endless starters and roasts, and you can add bottomless drinks for another £25 on top. That sounds like a Sunday well spent to us.

Tattu is famed for its contemporary Chinese fusion flavours and the Sunday lunch is no exception. Their Imperial Sunday Roast is a stately affair, including a proper aromatic roast duck, Chinese BBQ chicken, char siu pork and caramel soy bavette steak. Of course, these all come with fusion trimmings, like the exceptional salt and pepper roast potatoes with garlic, chilli and five-spice. To drink, we recommend the Forbidden Char sharing cocktail with Bombay Sapphire gin, peach and ginger. Get down from 12-5pm on a Sunday, and it’ll set you back about £36 per head.

An Indian restaurant that does a Sunday Roast – surely not? Well, Zouk get involved every Sunday with a selection of their unique roast dinners, with a little bit of an Indian twist – just to infuriate all you staunch traditionalists out there. We personally don’t believe there’s anything wrong with giving the roast dinner a bit of a kick up the arse with some spice, and with their ever-succulent meat and spicy gravy they’ve gone and done it. If you give them 24 hours notice, they can do a whole stuffed lamb for you too, an absolute show-stopper of a dish.