Katherine MacAlister visits Faringdon Coffee Shop and Al Roche Lebanese in Faringdon

The Tews are garnering more than their fair share of publicity thanks to Soho Farmhouse with its waiting list of 30,000, the world and his wife desperate for a piece of Nick Jones’ version of the countryside.

The resulting influx of celebrity residents, from the Beckhams to Angela Griffin, has added fuel to the celebrity fire, house prices rocketing, bemused residents marvelling at the fame game hype. The rest of Oxfordshire is happy for The Tews to take the heat while they get down to business, silently thanking God to have missed the Big Brother style spotlight this time around.

Or have they? Take Faringdon, for example, a proper market town, on the other side of the county, miles away from the glitz and glamour of the celebrity-stoked villages of the north and west.

Yet, news of a new Waitrose opening there nearly crashed our website, and Soho House had its plans for a motel and diner approved by Vale of White Horse District Council at a site off the A420 down the road in Buckland.

So while the market town doesn’t offer breakfast cooked on milk floats (as Soho Farmhouse does), wellies with designer mud or a breakfast buffet to fell The Hairy Bikers and two Fat Ladies all rolled into one (yet), slowly but surely it’s transforming into a great little foodie destination.

First came the award winning Restaurant 56 at Sudbury House, then La Bobina opened – a superb tapas restaurant.

But it was the unlikely discovery of a fabulous little Lebanese café there that caught my eye.

As unobtrusive as the rest of the town, the tiny Faringdon Coffee House and Al Roche Lebanese restaurant (catchy name, huh?) perches unceremoniously at the far side of the square, hiding behind its old school coffee shop exterior.

Once inside, one is none the wiser. A wonderful cake display on the wall and lots of people drinking tea, giving it a 1950s film set vibe. But look further and you notice that the old couple in the corner aren’t eating scones and sipping English breakfast tea, but instead dining on flatbreads and dips, mint tea, and... is that a parsley salad I spy?

When Samira and Sayed Sedaat set up shop in 2014, with both English and Lebanese menus, they doubted there would be much demand for Middle Eastern food in rural Oxfordshire.

They were wrong, their simple but delicious Lebanese dishes taking off to such an extent that their food is so popular, the café now opens at weekends solely as a Lebanese restaurant.

Luckily my dining companion, who lives in Faringdon, frequents this fantastically deceiving coffee shop on a regular basis, and suggested the platter instead, as it includes all the classics.

I insisted on the lentil soup first, it sounding so rich, with garlic, cumin and lemon, served with toasted Lebanese bread, for a ridiculously decent £3.90. It didn’t disappoint; that wonderfully earthy, soul-warming, authentic taste concocted by the Lebanese chef.

This was the real deal.

The platter was £13.99 for two and included hummus, falafel (deep fried bean croquette, chick peas, garlic and fine herbs served with tahine sauce), batata hara (potato cubes, fresh coriander, peppers, garlic and chillies fried in olive oil), tabouleh (finely chopped parsley, tomato, mint, option, crushed wheat, lemon juice and olive oil), sujouk (spicy Lebanese sausages grilled with tomato and onions), jawanah (charcoal grilled chicken wings marinated in garlic and lemon served with garlic sauce) and vine leaves (grape leaves filled with rice, herbs and lemon juice cooked in olive oil), as well as home-made garlic sauce and flatbreads.

I had to have some cauliflower zahra (fried with tahini sauce and cumin) and moutbel (baba ghanouj) priced £3.60 (grilled aubergine puree mixed with tahini, garlic and lemon juice.

The exotic spread made our penchant for English tea and sandwiches pale into insignificance; it was simple, tasty, spiced, healthy fodder a delicious and fun way to eat, all washed down with some cleansing mint tea £1.60. The bill was £30 for two and I left reassured that such a discreet cafe is as popular as its most blingy cousins.

Faringdon Coffee Shop and Al Roche Lebanese Restaurant

4B Market Place, Faringdon SN7 7HL

01367 241574

al-roche.co.uk