Roast Shoreditch Opens With a Halal Menu in London

London's halal news this week is a proper British institution crossing over: Roast, the restaurant that has overlooked Borough Market for more than 20 years, opened its second site on Wednesday 21 October 2026 inside Virgin Hotels London-Shoreditch at 45 Curtain Road — and it arrived with a separate halal menu. For Muslim travellers and Londoners who love a Sunday roast, that is genuinely new: a classic British roast dinner, in a mainstream restaurant, with a halal version on offer.

The opening was reported on 25 October 2026, drawing on RESET Magazine's menu coverage. Roast's chief executive Marc Bevan called opening the second restaurant "a hugely exciting milestone for the business". Here is what halal diners need to know — including the important caveat.

News posts on this site follow one rule: the opening, the address and the halal claim must all come from a published report, not from a rumour or a social post. For Roast Shoreditch, the opening date (21 October 2026), the address (45 Curtain Road, Virgin Hotels London-Shoreditch), the 135 covers and the separate halal menu all come from the published opening report. Where that report is silent — for example, it does not name a halal certifier — we say so instead of filling the gap.

Roast is a British restaurant best known for its Borough Market site, where it has served for more than two decades. The Shoreditch opening is its second restaurant, taking over a hotel space that previously housed Marcus Samuelsson's Red Rooster and then Bibo. The new room has 135 covers: a main dining room and bar, an orangery and a chef's table, with live music in the evenings and a private dining room for groups.

Hours matter for travellers: breakfast is served from 7am, and the restaurant runs lunch, afternoon tea and dinner every day. Sundays centre on the roasts — the meal this restaurant is built around — and that is where the halal menu matters most.

According to the opening report, there is a separate halal menu for both the Sunday roast and the main menu. The report does not publish the halal menu's dishes in full, and it does not name a certifying body — so this page cannot list halal dishes item by item, and halal diners should ask the restaurant for the current halal menu before visiting.

What we do know is the standard menu, and it makes the "order from the halal menu only" rule essential. The standard menu includes a haggis and pork Scotch egg, Cornish scallop crudo, a 42-day-aged roast beef, beef Wellington, grill steaks and a nut roast, with daily specials including a steak, ale and bone marrow pie on Mondays and roast suckling pig on Thursdays. A kitchen cooking pork dishes alongside halal dishes raises a separation question every strict halal diner should ask: how are halal dishes prepared, stored and served apart from pork? Ask before you book, not after you sit down.

Halal Sunday roasts are rare in London. The city's halal scene is dominated by Middle Eastern, South Asian and Turkish kitchens; a mainstream British restaurant offering a halal roast — in a hotel, in Shoreditch, with breakfast from 7am — fills a real gap for Muslim travellers staying in east London and for mixed groups where one table needs both a classic roast and a halal one.

It also fits a wider pattern: mainstream London restaurants are increasingly adding halal menus rather than converting entirely, the same store-by-store logic as Pizza Hut's halal huts and KFC's halal estate. The trend is good news for choice — and it makes the "check the specific menu, not the brand" rule more important than ever.

Shoreditch is Roast's second restaurant; the original has overlooked Borough Market for more than 20 years. That history matters because it tells you what kind of restaurant this is: not a pop-up or a rebrand, but a British roast institution expanding. The Borough Market site built its name on the classic roast — beef, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, seasonal vegetables — served in a market-side room. Shoreditch carries that same identity into a hotel setting, with the addition of breakfast from 7am, afternoon tea and live music in the evenings.

For halal diners, the difference between the two sites is simple: the halal menu news belongs to Shoreditch. Do not assume the Borough Market restaurant offers the same halal menu — this page's halal claim is specific to the Shoreditch opening, and you should check with Borough Market separately if you plan to eat there. Chain-level assumptions are exactly how halal mistakes happen, and Roast is no exception.

A Sunday roast is Britain's weekly ritual meal: roasted meat, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, vegetables and gravy, eaten in the early afternoon. A halal version keeps the format and swaps the sourcing — halal-certified meat, gravy made without pork or alcohol-based stock, and a kitchen process that keeps halal dishes apart from pork dishes. That last point is the one to press on: in a restaurant whose standard menu includes a haggis and pork Scotch egg and a Thursday roast suckling pig, separation is not automatic. It has to be a deliberate kitchen practice, and the restaurant should be able to describe it.

Questions worth asking when you book: Is the halal roast cooked in separate trays and with separate utensils? Is the gravy on the halal menu made separately from the standard gravy? Is the halal menu available every Sunday, or only on certain dates? A restaurant that has thought this through will answer quickly and specifically. Vague answers are a reason to eat elsewhere — London has no shortage of fully halal Sunday alternatives, and our halal restaurants in London guide lists them.

Shoreditch suits a full halal day out, not just a single meal. Book the roast for Sunday lunchtime, when the restaurant's roast service is at its centre, and use the morning for the area's markets and street art. Breakfast from 7am at Roast itself suits early risers staying at Virgin Hotels London-Shoreditch, and afternoon tea is the quieter slot if you want to try the room without the roast crowd. For the evening, the private dining room suits group bookings — a useful option for family celebrations or a work dinner where one table needs both classic and halal menus.

One practical note: Shoreditch is busiest on weekend afternoons, and a 135-cover restaurant in a hotel fills fast in its opening weeks. Book ahead, confirm the halal menu when you book, and reconfirm on the day. Opening-week menus change as kitchens settle in, and the halal menu is the part most likely to be adjusted.

A halal Sunday roast in a mainstream Shoreditch restaurant is worth celebrating — with eyes open. Roast Shoreditch's separate halal menu is real, reported news, but it is a menu inside a standard restaurant, not a halal restaurant. Order from the halal menu, ask about separation, and enjoy a roast dinner that Muslim diners in London have waited a long time for.

Visited Roast Shoreditch, or spotted a change to its halal menu? Tell us through our contact page and we'll recheck this news post — reader corrections keep it accurate for everyone.