Return of the Roast

In a city that prizes novelty and speed, the Sunday roast endures— not as nostalgia but as quiet resistance: a meal that asks us to sit down, slow down and stay a while

- By Fontaine Cheung

It's just meat and potatoes—but sometimes, that's enough to move you. It's not a chicken hurriedly crisped in an air fryer, nor a perfectly sliced sliver of Wagyu on a tasting menu plate. This is meat left to blister, basted in its own juices, then rested. Potatoes burnished and bronzed by duck fat and heat. A Yorkshire pudding risen from batter, against the odds.

In a city that dines fast and forgets faster, the roast can feel out of place. There are faster ways to eat, smarter, more creative menus to chase. And yet the roast is reappearing—slowly and steadily—not as a trend but as an answer. Perhaps we are exhausted by all the novelty, by food that performs more than it feeds. The roast asks nothing of us but presence. It's not here to impress—it's here to gather us.