Gordon Ker feels a bit guilty about Blacklock’s OFM gong, and no wonder. “To be honest, when we started in spring 2015, we never intended to open on Sundays,” he admits. “We’re a small team, and Soho is dead on a Sunday.”
What a difference a year and a half makes: Blacklock is now a Soho Sunday institution, with 300-plus sitting down to a proper roast dinner each week. “The dream was to do a roast like you get at home,” says Ker, 31. “Nothing beats your mum’s Sunday dinner, so we aim to be the next best thing.” Ker is ex-Hawksmoor, so it almost goes without saying that this is a slick operation.
The Sunday menu is gratifyingly to the point, and served family-style: just a couple of starters (bone marrow on sourdough, maybe, or roast scallops), followed by a choice of roast beef, pork or lamb (or a daunting plateful of all three), with all the traditional roast spud, carrot, greens, Yorkshire and gravy trimmings. There’s a touch of theatre about it, too, with the joints slow-roasted whole over open coals, which is perhaps not the way home cooks do it. For pudding: “It’s cheesecake.” Portion control is similar to Mum’s, too – you won’t be wanting an evening meal after this little lot.
It’s also one of the best Sunday deals in town: that vast mixed platter with sides is £20 all-in. “It’s all about value,” Ker says. “We do cocktails from a fiver, we use top-quality meat at a middle-end price point [all Blacklock’s carcasses come from one of the godfathers of British butchery, Philip Warren in north Cornwall], and extra sides are £4 a pop.”
It’s enough to make competitors weep. Dave Strauss, operations manager for the group that runs Goodman and Burger & Lobster, says they trialled a Sunday roast at Zelman Meats earlier this year, only to jack it in after a month or so. “There’s no way we could match Blacklock, so we’re sticking with Sunday steaks. What’s the point in even trying to compete? Have you tried their gravy? It’s ridiculous.”
Ker agrees. “Our gravy is off the scale,” he laughs. “We did a catering gig recently where our sauces were accidentally poured down the drain, so we called up the restaurant, had a batch of gravy sent over, and served it with Yorkshires. It couldn’t have gone down better if we’d planned it that way.”
Blacklock, 24 Great Windmill St, London W1
