Short answer: EZPZ Restaurant is the standout near Penzance. 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 Penzance, and — more usefully — what to ask before you book.
A genuinely small, unfussy restaurant doing some of the best Sunday roasts in Penzance, with a top-notch chef and real warmth from the owner.
A genuinely lovely restaurant inside the Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, with a proper Sunday roast and stunning surroundings — worth combining with a wander round the sculptures.
The Dolphin Tavern — A genuinely excellent harbourside pub with fresh, generous fish and chips, and staff who bring water and treats for dogs without being asked.
Admiral Benbow — An incredibly quirky pub crammed with nautical and pirate memorabilia, with the back modelled on a ship's interior — genuinely good food and a great beer selection.
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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