Sunday Dates in London: Roasts, Markets, Jazz Lunches and Slow Afternoons

Why Sunday works for a date

Sunday has a slower rhythm than a Friday or Saturday night, and that suits a date. Nobody is rushing from work, a long lunch is normal, and a daytime meeting feels lower stakes than drinks at 9pm. It also gives an easy shape to the day: eat, walk, maybe see something, and go home at a reasonable hour before Monday.

The catch is that London runs a little differently on a Sunday. Popular roasts book up, some markets trade only at the weekend, large shops open for a shorter window, and the Tube is often where planned engineering work happens. This guide covers each of those, using the venues' and agencies' own pages as read on 14 October 2026. Where a detail comes from Wikipedia rather than an official page, it says so.

The Sunday roast: book it, and know the price

A roast is the default Sunday date for good reason: it is long, shareable conversation material and gives you a natural two hours together. It also tends to sell out, so treat it like a theatre booking rather than a walk-in.

Hawksmoor serves a Sunday roast, and its Air Street menu says it can't guarantee roasts will be available after 5pm. The roast is slow-roasted rump of beef cooked over charcoal, served with roast potatoes cooked in beef dripping, Yorkshire puddings, bone marrow and onion gravy, greens and carrots; cauliflower cheese, stuffing and extra gravy are offered on request. The Air Street Sunday roast menu lists dry-aged rump at 29.50, dry-aged sirloin at 35 and a vegetarian Winslade Wellington at 28, with a 'Sunday feasting' option of blackboard cuts plus 9.50 for all the trimmings. Sides include Hawksmoor stuffing at 8.00 and cauliflower cheese at 7.50. The menu page prints the numbers without a pound sign; they are pounds on the restaurant's UK menu. Other branches may differ, so check the menu for the one you book. Hawksmoor's own FAQ lists eight London restaurants, including Spitalfields (157a Commercial Street), Seven Dials (11 Langley Street), Borough (16 Winchester Walk) and Air Street (5A Air Street).

Blacklock says its roast menu is only available on Sundays, with chops and steaks served Monday to Saturday. Its Sunday roast page lists 55-day aged beef rump at 27, 28-day aged lamb leg at 26, 21-day aged pork loin at 25 and a barbecued cauliflower chop roast (vegetarian) at 18, again without a pound sign. The page's FAQ says the roast cuts come with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, seasonal vegetables and unlimited gravy, and that roasts are served all day on Sunday with last seating at 8pm. The page calls this list a taster, so the full menu may hold more. Blacklock's site lists London restaurants in Soho (24 Great Windmill Street), the City (13 Philpot Lane), Shoreditch (28–30 Rivington Street), Covent Garden (16a Bedford Street) and Canary Wharf (5 Frobisher Passage), each with its own reservations page. The homepage says it keeps a couple of tables free at the start of service for walk-ins, but does not say whether that applies on Sundays.

A late seating at Blacklock is useful if you would rather do a market or a gallery first and eat at 5pm or 6pm. An early Hawksmoor booking suits the opposite plan: eat at midday, then walk it off.

• Hawksmoor Air Streetrestaurant

  5A Air Street, Piccadilly, W1

  Sunday roast menu lists dry-aged rump 29.50, sirloin 35 and Winslade Wellington (v) 28; roasts not guaranteed after 5pm.

• Blacklock Sohorestaurant

  24 Great Windmill Street, Soho, W1

  Roast menu on Sundays only; beef rump 27, lamb 26, pork 25, cauliflower roast (v) 18, with unlimited gravy; last seating 8pm.

Sunday markets on and around Brick Lane

Our guide to London markets for a date already covers Columbia Road's Sunday flower market, Spitalfields, Borough, Maltby Street, Broadway and Greenwich, so this section stays a few minutes' walk away, on Brick Lane. It is an easy pairing with Columbia Road if you want two stops in one morning.

Wikipedia, a secondary source, says the Brick Lane market began in the 17th century as a Sunday farmers' market, held on Sundays because of the religious observance of the area's large Jewish community, and that Bangladeshi immigrants reshaped the area in the 20th century. Since the early 2000s, several markets have opened inside the Old Truman Brewery, an 11-acre site at the northern end of Brick Lane that Wikipedia says now houses roughly 250 businesses.

The one built around Sunday is Sunday UpMarket. Wikipedia says it opened in September 2004, has nearly 100 stallholders, and sells vintage clothing, handmade accessories, art, organic produce and desserts alongside a large street food offer. It sits in the brewery's F-Block, reached from Brick Lane or Ely's Yard, and Wikipedia gives its hours as Saturday 11am–5.30pm and Sunday 10am–6pm. The same article lists the Brick Lane Vintage Market as open seven days, Sunday 10am–6pm, and the Backyard Market, an arts-and-crafts market established in 2006 with over eighty stalls, as open Sunday 10am–5pm.

We could not load Sunday UpMarket's own website when checking, so treat these hours as a guide and confirm before you go. For a date, the appeal is simple: eat from several stalls, browse vintage, and keep moving if the first hour feels awkward.

• Sunday UpMarketmarket

  Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, E1

  Street food, vintage, art and handmade goods; Wikipedia gives Sunday 10am–6pm and an opening date of September 2004. The official site could not be loaded on the check date.

Shop hours on a Sunday: the six-hour rule

If your plan includes browsing big shops, the clock matters. GOV.UK says that in England and Wales a large shop, meaning one over 280 square metres, can open on a Sunday only for 6 consecutive hours between 10am and 6pm. Such shops must close on Christmas Day and Easter Sunday, and if their Sunday hours are restricted they must display them inside and outside the shop. Small shops, up to and including 280 square metres, can open any day and at any hour. Scotland has no trading hours restrictions.

In practice that is why department stores and supermarkets often open at around 11am or noon and close by 5pm or 6pm on a Sunday, while small independents, cafés and corner shops keep their own hours. GOV.UK lists exemptions including airport and railway station outlets, service stations, registered pharmacies selling only medicinal products, and farms selling mainly their own produce.

The law behind this is the Sunday Trading Act 1994. Wikipedia, a secondary source, says it received royal assent on 5 July 1994, replacing restrictions in the Shops Act 1950, after the Shops Bill 1986 to allow wider Sunday trading had been defeated. It also records that the rules were suspended on eight weekends during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and that a 2015–16 government plan to let larger shops open longer was defeated in the House of Commons.

For a date, the takeaway is to plan shopping for the middle of the afternoon and to put the walk, the roast or the music either side of it.

Sunday travel: check engineering works first

Weekends are when TfL does much of its planned work, and a closed line is a bad start to a date. TfL's status page shows live service status and a 'week ahead' view of planned works by day; when we read it on 14 October 2026, Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October showed the most affected lines in that week. The page also links to TfL's planned line closures and service changes, its station, lift and escalator works, and an email alert service that it says gives advanced warning of weekend closures and planned works.

The planned closures page advises checking before you travel with the TfL Go app or Journey Planner, says TfL suggests other routes such as other rail services or local buses when a station is closed, and may provide rail replacement buses where there is no reasonable alternative. It links to a six-month look-ahead of planned track closures. On the check date it noted that westbound trains would not stop at Barons Court until late 2026 because of staircase and canopy work, and that some weekend sections of the DLR would close to finish an upgrade, without giving dates.

TfL's Journey Planner lets you choose full step-free access or step-free to platform only, prefer escalators or stairs, limit walking time and pick routes with fewer changes. If one of you relies on step-free access, set that before you agree where to meet.

A practical habit: on the Saturday evening, check both your routes and agree a meeting point that has more than one line or a bus alternative. Our guide to dating in London and the Tube covers how far is reasonable to travel for a first date.

Sunday afternoon jazz: the 606 Club lunch

Live music during the day takes the pressure off talking non-stop, and a Sunday lunch with a band gives you a shared thing to react to. The 606 Club at 90 Lots Road in Chelsea runs a Sunday lunch from 12.30pm to 4pm, with music starting around 1.30pm. Its page lists a music charge of £16 per person unless otherwise noted, and a Sunday menu with prices, including roast chicken at £17.95, with an optional 12.5% service charge added to the bill.

The club encourages reservations, online or by phone, and says groups and children accompanied by adults are welcome. Its Sunday lunch page does not say whether ordering food is compulsory, so ask when you book. For evening jazz across the rest of the week, see our guide to jazz clubs and jazz nights in London.

• 606 Clubjazz club

  90 Lots Road, Chelsea, SW10

  Sunday lunch 12.30pm–4pm with music from around 1.30pm; £16 music charge per person unless otherwise noted; reservations encouraged.

Sunday cabaret: the Royal Vauxhall Tavern

For a queer Sunday that runs from afternoon into evening, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern is the obvious name. Its own site gives the address as 372 Kennington Lane, SE11 5HY, and lists Sunday Cabaret shows with named drag and comedy acts, each with a 'Book Tickets' link through OutSavvy. The listings we read did not show times or prices on the homepage, and the venue's opening-times page is an image that may be dated, so check the individual event page before you go.

Wikipedia, a secondary source, says the tavern opened in 1863, began attracting gay men and staging drag after the Second World War, and was raided by police in 1987. It became a Grade II listed building on 8 September 2015 following an application by the community group RVT Future, which Wikipedia describes as the first UK listing for a building's importance to LGBTQ history. Wikipedia also describes the Sunday Social as a Sunday afternoon event combining drag performers and DJs.

An afternoon cabaret works well as a second or third date, when you already know you enjoy each other's company and want something with more energy. For more on drag, cabaret and comedy nights, see our guide to queer cabaret in London.

• Royal Vauxhall TavernLGBTQ+ venue

  372 Kennington Lane, Vauxhall, SE11

  Lists Sunday Cabaret shows ticketed through OutSavvy; Grade II listed in 2015 according to Wikipedia. Check each event page for times and prices.

Putting a Sunday together

A few combinations that suit different dates. For an easy first meeting, try the Brick Lane markets late morning, then a coffee and a walk, and part by mid-afternoon. For a longer second date, make the 606 Club's Sunday lunch the main event and let the music carry the afternoon, or book a midday roast and walk it off. For a lively evening, try an early Blacklock seating then the Royal Vauxhall Tavern's Sunday cabaret if a show is listed.

Whatever the plan, three checks cover most of what can go wrong on a Sunday: the booking, the opening hours, and TfL's weekend works. Agree how each of you is getting home, too; our guide to getting home safely after a date covers night buses and other options.

Before you go

• Book the roast. Hawksmoor's Air Street menu says roasts can't be guaranteed after 5pm; Blacklock has separate reservation pages for each restaurant.
• Check TfL's status page and planned closures on the Saturday, and have a backup route. Weekend days usually carry the most planned works.
• Expect large shops to open for six hours only, between 10am and 6pm, and to be closed on Easter Sunday and Christmas Day.
• Confirm market hours on the day. Sunday UpMarket's own site could not be loaded when we checked, so the hours here come from Wikipedia.
• For the 606 Club, budget for the £16 music charge plus food and the optional 12.5% service charge, and book in advance.
• For the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, check the specific Sunday event page on OutSavvy for times and prices before travelling.

Questions people ask

How much is a Sunday roast in London?

It varies by restaurant. On 14 October 2026, Hawksmoor's Air Street Sunday menu listed dry-aged rump at £29.50, sirloin at £35 and a vegetarian Wellington at £28. Blacklock's Sunday roast page listed beef rump at £27, lamb at £26, pork at £25 and a cauliflower roast at £18. Drinks, sides and service are extra.

What time do shops open on a Sunday in London?

Large shops in England and Wales, those over 280 square metres, can open for 6 consecutive hours between 10am and 6pm, according to GOV.UK. Each shop chooses its window. Small shops can open any time, and some outlets, such as railway station and airport shops, are exempt. Large shops must close on Easter Sunday and Christmas Day.

Is the Tube closed on Sundays?

The Tube runs on Sundays, but weekends are when TfL schedules much of its planned engineering work, so parts of lines may be closed. TfL's status page shows the week ahead by day, and its planned closures page links to a six-month look-ahead. TfL advises checking the TfL Go app or Journey Planner before travelling.

Which markets are open on a Sunday in London?

Around Brick Lane, Wikipedia gives Sunday UpMarket and the Brick Lane Vintage Market as open on Sundays 10am–6pm. Columbia Road flower market trades only on Sundays; our London markets guide covers it, plus Spitalfields, Borough, Maltby Street, Broadway and Greenwich with their own hours.

Where can we hear jazz on a Sunday afternoon?

The 606 Club in Chelsea runs a Sunday lunch from 12.30pm to 4pm with music from around 1.30pm and a £16 per person music charge unless otherwise noted. Reservations are encouraged.