Short answer: Borough Arms, Bodmin is the standout near Bodmin. Book ahead — Cornish pubs cook a set number of roasts and the good ones sell out by early afternoon, especially out of season.
Sunday lunch is the meal Cornish pubs do best, and it is genuinely the right thing to be eating here between October and March. Here is where to go near Bodmin, and — more usefully — what to ask before you book.
A genuinely excellent gastropub carvery, dog-friendly with treats and water offered as standard — plenty of outdoor seating for a summer visit.
A genuinely excellent moorland pub with a well-loved carvery and a vast specials board — worth the short drive out onto Bodmin Moor for the setting alone.
Hole In The Wall — A genuinely charming, historic pub packed with quirky antiques and a good range of real ales — a proper local boozer with real character.
Masons Arms Bodmin — A genuinely well-run local pub with good food at fair prices and parking right outside — live music some evenings adds to the atmosphere.
This is the one piece of advice that matters most. Cornish pubs are small, Sunday lunch is the busiest service of the week, and most kitchens cook a fixed number of roasts. When they're gone, they're gone — often by two o'clock.
Out of season this catches people out even more, not less. Fewer places serve roasts at all in winter, so demand concentrates on the ones that do.
The sweet spot for a Cornish Sunday roast is a 12:30 or 1pm booking. Earlier and the kitchen is still finding its rhythm; later and you risk the popular cuts having gone.
If you want a walk first, factor in that Cornish daylight is short from November onwards — a coast path walk and a 2pm roast works in June and doesn't in December.
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