Winner: Fence Gate Inn, Fence, Lancashire (readers' award)
For 20 years before he set up the business that would eventually become the award-winning Fence Gate Inn, Kevin Berkins was, like his father before him, a butcher. 'I bone out all the sirloins and legs of lamb that we serve on a Sunday myself,' he says. The hard work has not gone unappreciated, because you have chosen the Fence Gate Inn as this year's winner of our best Sunday lunch award. Berkins is clear why they succeed. It is, he says, a combination of value - the Sunday main course costs £9.95, for a heaving plateful of 21-day-hung roast beef, potatoes both roasted and mashed, root vegetables, greens and two Yorkshire puddings - and a commitment to local produce.
The Fence Gate Inn is a prime mover in the Dug This Morning campaign, which gets ingredients out of the fields and on to the plate within a few hours, and all the meat is traceable. Today, as its celebrates its 25th anniversary, the Fence Gate Inn is a major business. As well as the traditional-style pub, with its wood panelling and flowery carpets, there are two function rooms accommodating nearly 400 people between them, plus a sleek brasserie. The menu ranges far and wide, with stop-offs in Italy, India and Thailand. But at the heart of it are solid British classics - think steak and ale pie made with Guinness - and championship-standard sausages made on site by Kevin. And then there's that Sunday lunch. The Fence Gate Inn: it's what the weekend is for.
· Wheatley Lane Road, Fence, near Burnley (01282 618101)
Runner up: The Sportsman, Seasalter, Kent
A real seaside gem, this beachfront restaurant does great food, much of it from the surrounding area and waters. The menu features wonderful oysters, vodka-cured salmon and plenty of local fish as well as roast lamb or pork. Anything that can be made in-house is, so bread is baked on the premises and served with homemade butter, and hams are hand-cured. They even produce their own salt, which is rather sensible given the restaurant's salt-marsh location. Chef Stephen Harris is self-taught, and makes time to visit as many other restaurants as possible, adopting any flourishes that he likes for his own dishes - hence ingredients like Space Dust (à la Heston Blumenthal) popping up in the rhubarb sorbet.
· Faversham Road, Seasalter, Kent (01227 273370)
Best of the rest
Scotland
Iglu Ethical Eatery
2b Jamaica Street, Edinburgh (0131 476 5333)
A drive by three siblings to open a more ecologically sustainable restaurant at the end of 2005 resulted in this blow-'em-away, sweep-all-the-awards eating house, cherished for its vision as much as its venison, wild boar, crab and mussels. Contemporary Scottish is the style.
Wales
Plas Bodegroes
Pwllheli, Gwynedd, North Wales (01758 612363)
You can still get a three-course lunch on Sundays for £18.50 at this old-established country house hotel - not bad for a restaurant with a Michelin star. The setting is wildly romantic, the food is rock-solid traditional.
N. Ireland
Bushmills Inn Hotel
9 Dunluce Road, Bushmills, Co Antrim (028 2073 3000)
Fully booked every weekend, Sunday lunch at the world's oldest distillery has become something of an institution. A huge range of roasted meats carved to order and half a dozen sorts of vegetable make up the main course at £10.75, while the hotel itself is all nooks and crannies and gas lamps. Favourite post-lunch activity is a walk on the Giant's Causeway, just up the road.
Yorkshire & Humberside
Blackwell Ox Inn
Huby Road, Sutton on the Forest (01347 810328)
The rustic cuisines of south west France and Catalunya are cited as the biggest influences on food served in this cosy village pub, which beckons with roaring log fires and comfy sofas after a bracing country walk.
North west
The Three Fishes
Mitton Road, Mitton, Whalley, Lancashire (01254 826888)
One very classy whitewashed inn, where local food heroes are pictured on the walls and their produce given full credit in a mouthwatering menu of roasts, ribs, sharing platters of meat and seafood, pies, grills and puds. There's a huge choice and it's all excellent.
The Metropolitan,
2 Lapwing Lane, West Didsbury, Manchester, (0161 374 9559)
City conviviality at its most alluring can be experienced at this vast Victorian boozer, where the sheer size of the place happily accommodates frenetic toddlers, hungover twentysomethings and seniors in search of a quiet lunch. All roasts come with classic Yorkshire puddings, though the Metropolitan burger is also a Sunday hit.
North east
Jesmond Dene House
Jesmond Dene Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, (0191 212 3000)
Beautiful stone mansion-turned-contemporary hotel - the latest in Terry Laybourne's empire - this house proves an irresistible setting for almost any menu (pork cheeks in Newcastle Brown Ale?) and although not cheap, Sunday lunch is clearly worth £22.50.
Midlands
Brownlow Arms
High Road, Hough-on-the-Hill, Grantham, Lincolnshire (01400 250234)
Well worth a jaunt into the countryside, this stone-built village inn is all refinement, with its smartly mismatched chairs, modern cooking and pretty garden.
East Anglia
The Leaping Hare Restaurant
Wyken Vineyards, Stanton, Suffolk (01359 250287)
The food is lovely here, but the added attractions of ancient barn as dining room, Elizabethan garden to visit, strolling poultry outside and a myriad little buildings turned into retail opportunities can hardly be denied.
South west
Tate St Ives Café
Porthmeor Beach, St Ives, Cornwall (01736 791122)
Who needs a roast when the view is this stunning? Grilled mackerel and salad, a glass of wine and a slice of homemade cake is food fit for the gods once you've seen the art and gazed out to sea over lunch.
Combe House
Holford, Somerset (01278 741382)
The food at this small hotel tucked into the foothills of the Quantocks goes from strength to strength. Everything is sourced locally wherever possible and many of the fruit and vegetables are grown in the hotel's organic kitchen garden. Staff are young and friendly, the dining room has been recently refurbished and reflects the owners' savvy, well-travelled taste.
South east
The Jolly Sportsman
Chapel Lane, East Chiltington, East Sussex (01273 890400)
Book in advance for seasonal fare - local roast Ditchling lamb or wild halibut steak - eaten off solid slabs of oak in the convivial bar, or surrounded by contemporary art in the modern-rustic restaurant where, in summer, the doors open to the jasmine-scented terrace. The menu offers child-friendly options, too.
The Hinds Head
High Street, Bray, Berkshire (01628 626151)
Next door to the famous Fat Duck, in what could be termed England's gastronomic capital, The Hinds Head hotel offers a chance to eat traditional British dishes - pea and ham soup, Lancashire hotpot, Eton Mess and so on - with that Heston Blumenthal spin. Not too expensive, either.
London
The Garrison
99 Bermondsey Street, SE1 (020 7089 9355)
Even vegetarians are well catered for at the warmly atmospheric Garrison, a city gastropub that dare not rest on its laurels in trendy Bermondsey. It's open from breakfast through to dinner and menus aim to please all-comers.
Petersham Nurseries
Off Petersham Road, Richmond (020 8605 3627)
No mere garden centre, at this gorgeous garden, restaurant and teahouse in a romantic old shed, you can buy tableware, garden furniture and plants, including over 120 varieties of old-fashioned rose, then sample Skye Gyngell's deeply trendy cooking, which features everything from Brussels sprout tops to rabbit with wild watercress. Best to book to avoid disappointment.
St John's
Junction Road, N19 (020 7272 1587)
The bohemian atmosphere of this cavernous north London eatery draws so many punters, service can be hectic, but the staples of steak, risotto, fish and chips and pints of ale make it a hit with locals.
Inn the Park
St James's Park, SW1 (020 7451 999)
Sunday lunch is served till 4pm here, giving you plenty of time to hunker down with a roasted Goosnargh chicken and crispy leeks, or Scottish rib-eye steak with horseradish. For those of more pescatarian inclinations, there's the Inn the Park fish pie to go for, and for smaller guests there's a children's menu - sausages and mash or fishcakes with crushed peas, plus a pud, for £9.50.
The Anglesea Arms
35 Wingate Road, W6 (020 8749 1291)
Very much a pub, but a cut above the usual roast with all the trimmings, the menu features dishes like confit duck leg, sautéed squid and Spanish black pudding with mashed potato and parmesan, all for reasonable prices.
River Café
Thames Wharf, Rainville Road, W6 (020 7386 4200)
No mere meat and two veg here, rather visit this fabulously glam Italian for more sophisticated fare - chargrilled spatchcocked Anjou pigeon or shin of Limousin veal, anyone?
Chez Bruce
2 Bellevue Road, SW17 (020 8672 0114)
For a bit of a treat, head here for Chateaubriand with chips, wild mushroom gnocchi or calf's tongue and Savoy cabbage. Owner Bruce Poole won OFM restaurant of the year in 2006.
