A whole roast chicken is the homiest of home-cooked dishes, the ultimate Sunday supper. Brine the bird, rub it with butter, stuff the cavity, slide herbs under the skin, or just sprinkle it with plenty of salt and plunk it in a blazing oven without fanfare. Whether the preparation is elaborate or simple, the results are the same: a comforting meal and a house that smells great.

And yet the whole roast chicken has left the home kitchen, making for restaurants around town. It should come as no surprise — we’ve done the same. Chefs are putting the dish on menus, using their culinary training and high-test equipment to turn out the best version of roast chicken they possibly can. Servers bring out the whole bird for diners to admire, then whisk it away. Magical elves in the kitchen carve and plate it, and one’s dinner is then returned. On menus, the dish is often billed as “whole roast chicken for two.” As dining becomes less formal, such shared items — rib eye for two, pig’s head for two — are increasingly appearing.

Whole roast chicken’s home-cooked qualities are the very reason chef Matthew Gaudet put it on the opening menu of his new Cambridge restaurant, West Bridge, where turbot, lamb shoulder, or goat for two might also appear. “I love the Sunday supper thing, communal dining, shared plates,” he says. “There’s nothing better than the basic, straightforward, tried-and-true, perfectly cooked, beautifully raised piece of meat. And there is nothing homier or more comfortable than a chicken. People can come home to roost and have a comforting meal. It’s Sunday supper every day.”

It can also be argued that restaurant kitchens are better equipped to turn out excellent roast chickens, with crisp skins and juicy meat. “We have better ovens and more spacious ovens,” Gaudet says.