Masterton Roast Restaurant serves roasts from 252 Queen Street, the main street of Masterton in the Wairarapa, and holds a 4.1 Google rating from diners.
A good roast restaurant lives and dies by its meat: cuts cooked low and slow until they pull tender, gravy made from the pan juices rather than a packet, and vegetables roasted in the drippings for real flavour. In sheep-and-cattle country like the Wairarapa, lamb is the traditional benchmark, though well-rested beef or pork with proper crackling earns its own following. Because slow cooking limits how much a kitchen can prepare in a day, popular roasts can run out — regulars arrive early, and Sunday lunch or a cold winter evening is when roast houses do their biggest trade.
For anyone in the middle of Masterton with a hankering for a proper plate of roast meat and gravy, it sits handily on the town's main thoroughfare.