Gastropub in Camberwell: The Camberwell Arms Sunday Roast

The Camberwell Arms is a nineteenth-century pub at 65 Camberwell Church Street, London SE5 8TR, run as a neighbourhood restaurant since Chef Director Mike Davies set it up in 2014. Its cooking makes it one of the gastropub names south Londoners recommend first. On the 16 October 2026 dinner menu, peppered venison was £28, and Sunday lunch comes as whole joints to share with roast potatoes, from £45.

Harden's calls the Camberwell Arms the well-established sibling to Waterloo's Anchor & Hope, and notes that Davies learnt his trade there. The pub's own site adds that it is run by the same team behind Frank's Café, the summer rooftop bar at Bold Tendencies in Peckham. Menus carry the line All's Well, est. 2014, and the kitchen has an in-house butchery, which explains the sharing cuts.

The team makes as much as it can in-house, from bread and ice cream to pickles, smoked fish and ferments, and the charcuterie board shows it: whey-fed Saddleback finocchiona and Hereford bresaola with pickled gherkins for £14. Harden's 2026 survey scored the food Very Good, a notch above service and ambience, and put a typical three-course dinner with half a bottle of wine at about £73.

Start small. Scotch bonnet pork fat on toast and beer onions on toast with Comté are £7 each, and they are the right order while you decide. Gnocchi Parisienne with girolles, persillade and Doddington cheese was £14.50 on 16 October, and Newlyn bluefin tuna tartare with Todoli citrus, bottarga and crispbread was £17. Both work as a starter for one or as part of a run of small plates.

Mains that night included Saddleback pork belly with kalibos cabbage, rosetta apple and mustard at £27, and slip soles with potted brown shrimp and rock samphire at £32. For two, a whole barbecued brill with béarnaise and chips was £52, and a whey-fed pork chop with pickled grapes and crispy sage was £58. Dry-aged Hereford beef appears on the board without a printed price, and chips are £6.

This is the most important thing to know before booking a Sunday. The 11 October 2026 lunch menu listed every main as a sharing dish served with roast potatoes: half a Sladesdown Farm chicken with creamed Savoy and bacon at £45, a beef, ale and bone marrow pie with buttered cabbage at £45, and slow-cooked Romney lamb with cavolo nero, chilli, mint and pine nuts at £59.

Dry-aged Hereford rump with horseradish crème fraîche was £60, and Saddleback porchetta with pickled grapes was offered in two sizes, £28 or £54. Extra roast potatoes cost £5, and a Bloody Mary is £9.50. Harden's reviewers single out the pies and the big joints, one describing Sunday lunch with the whole family as a real treat. Come as three or four and order two joints rather than one each.

Harden's reviewers are blunt about the crowd: achingly hip punters, and hipsters who do not like posh restaurants. Other reviewers describe families gathering for Sunday lunch around the big joints, so the room mixes both. One reviewer said it manages to straddle the line between a friendly local boozer and a gastro destination, which is a fair summary of a place with a pub frontage and a restaurant kitchen.

There are about 80 covers, highchairs for children, no dress code, and a private room for 50 that hosts weddings, birthdays and Christmas parties. The pub is always busy and buzzing, according to earlier Harden's reviews, so do not expect a quiet table. On the drinks side, the list leans natural, a Negroni is £10, and Uprising's 2024 Camberwell Pom cider costs £6 a glass.

Reservations are taken through the booking widget on the pub's website. The site does not publish opening hours, so plan around the menus it posts, which currently cover dinner and Sunday lunch, and book rather than turning up hungry on a weekend evening. A discretionary 12.5% service charge is added to every bill.

The caveat is the sharing format. If you are eating alone on a Sunday, the cheapest main is the smaller porchetta at £28, and the joints are priced for two or more, so a solo roast here costs more than at a standard local. If that is you, come on a weekday evening instead and eat from the dinner board, where a starter and a main for one stays near £45.

Camberwell has no Tube station. The nearest rail is Denmark Hill, served by the Overground, Thameslink and Southeastern, about 950 metres or thirteen minutes on foot, walking north past King's College Hospital toward Camberwell Green. Buses along Camberwell Church Street are the other option. From central London, Southeastern trains from Victoria and Thameslink trains from Blackfriars both stop at Denmark Hill.

The South London Gallery at 65 to 67 Peckham Road is about 650 metres east, a nine-minute walk, and admission is free. It opens Wednesday from noon to 9pm and Thursday to Sunday from noon to 6pm, which makes a Wednesday visit followed by an early dinner at the pub an easy evening. On Sundays, see the gallery first and book a late lunch to beat the family rush.

Address: 65 Camberwell Church Street, Camberwell, London SE5 8TR. Nearest station: Denmark Hill, about thirteen minutes on foot. Book through the website's reservation widget; event enquiries go through the site too. Prices above come from the dated menus of 11 and 16 October 2026, and the menu changes regularly, so expect different dishes on the day.

Who it suits: groups sharing a Sunday joint, food-minded south Londoners, and anyone visiting the South London Gallery. Who it does not suit: a solo diner after a cheap roast, or a couple looking for a hushed room. Ask in the Karpo APP for other dining pubs between Camberwell and Peckham if you want to compare menus before choosing where to book.