We get asked about it most weeks, usually on the phone, usually in the same slightly wary tone: is it a carvery? It’s a fair question. A lot of Sunday lunch in this part of the world is, and there’s nothing wrong with that — but it isn’t what we do, and it’s worth explaining why.
What “made to order” actually means
It means your plate doesn’t exist until you ask for it. Nothing sits in a tray under a lamp waiting for the room to fill. When your order reaches our kitchen, that’s when the beef is carved, the potatoes come out, the gravy goes on. It reaches you the way it left the pass — hot, and only a minute or two old.
The trade-off is honest enough: it takes a little longer, and we can only serve as many people as our kitchen can properly cook for. That’s why we ask you to book. It isn’t a queue for a hot plate; it’s a table, at a time, with your name on it.
Nothing sits waiting under a lamp. Your plate doesn’t exist until you ask for it.
What’s on the table
Sunday is three courses. The centre of it is the roasts of the day — the selection changes with what’s good, so ask your server what’s on. Whatever you choose arrives with creamed potato, roast potato, seasonal veg, gravy, and a Yorkshire pudding stuffed with beef ragù, which is the thing people tend to mention afterwards.
Before that, there’s soup with our own bread and brown butter, tiger prawns in lemon and parsley, fried goat’s cheese with pickled beetroot and candied walnuts, or a ham hock terrine. After it, a lemon posset, a spiced apple and rhubarb crumble, or a chocolate mousse, depending on how the roast went.
And if you’ve come for a roast but find yourself wanting a steak — which happens — the Quinn’s Butcher’s sirloin and fillet are on the Sunday menu too, for a supplement. Same butcher, same beef, cooked the way you ask for it.
The full Sunday menu lives on the website, and that’s the one to trust — it moves with the seasons, and this post won’t.
Bringing everyone
The Mini Roast runs every Sunday from midday to four. It’s a proper small roast rather than an afterthought, and it sits on our Little Tailors menu beside the usual reliable things for anyone who has firm views about gravy.
Getting to us
We’re on Main Street in Ballygawley, with free parking outside — about fifteen minutes from Dungannon, half an hour from Omagh and Enniskillen. If Sunday lunch turns into Sunday afternoon, and Sunday afternoon turns into a second bottle, there are six rooms upstairs and no drive home.
Book a table online, or ring us on 028 8556 8910 and we’ll sort you out. Sundays go quickly — particularly the later ones.
The Quinn Family