Ringing the changes at the Bell at Hampton Poyle

9:52am Thursday 25th June 2009

‘It’s a pub that doesn’t sell food because its customers don’t want it,” I wrote 22 years ago about The Bell, a tiny one-room local at Hampton Poyle. If only its then landlord Ernie Soanes could see the place today!

The Merry Miller at Cothill

3:43pm Wednesday 17th June 2009

was going to prove a memorable dish indeed. Nevertheless, I pressed on, hoping that the spoonfuls that followed were going to be more easy to swallow. They weren’t. This was memorably awful soup. After three or four mouthfuls I gave up. It had been a bit like trying to eat the bristles of a brush.

Wild about Wild Thyme

12:42pm Wednesday 3rd June 2009

The commitment to local produce demonstrated by Chipping Norton’s excellent new restaurant Wild Thyme can hardly extend, for obvious reasons, to produce from the sea. The town is said to be as far from the coast as you can get in England, so the definition of local would have to be flexible indeed to embrace such delights as the juicy pearl-white turbot I enjoyed on my first visit or the delicious crab that preceded it.

The Indian Room/The Exeter Hall, Oxford Road, Cowley

1:43pm Wednesday 29th April 2009

It is a fact of life today – unpalatable though it is to some – that many pubs of the traditional English style must either adapt or close. The Exeter Hall in Cowley (but only just) is one that has adapted.

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The Bear at Home, North Moreton

5:16pm Wednesday 22nd April 2009

I was first made aware of the good things about the Bear at Home in North Moreton – some of them at least – through an article early last month in The Times.

The Thatch in Thame

5:16pm Wednesday 8th April 2009

Dined on Monday of last week in the Great Hall at Christ Church where the table decoration immediately in front of me was a beautifully detailed silver model of a horse – a trophy awarded until the Second World War at the annual point-to-point races of the Bullingdon Club.

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Gee's, Banbury Road, Oxford

10:22am Thursday 2nd April 2009

I wrote enthusiastically about Gee’s on this page after a memorable birthday dinner there last summer. There need be no apology, however, for my returning so soon to sing its praises once again. With a new chef in charge of the kitchen since December, and appealing new menus introduced under his guidance, this admirable establishment – by some way my favourite upmarket Oxford restaurant – is on a real high at present.

The Plough, High Street, Witney

9:21am Thursday 26th March 2009

I wrote at the end of January about The Lamb at Satwell, and within days it had closed, along with three other eating establishments owned by Antony Worrall Thompson, whose business had been placed in administration. A week later, I visited The Plough, in Witney, in order to review it on this page. Two days before the article was to appear, the pub was badly damaged by fire and forced to close. Could I be carrying a jinx fatal to the catering industry?

The Swan at Ascott, Ascott-under-Wychwood

2:28pm Wednesday 18th March 2009

I don’t often get out to the Wychwoods and for some reason I always seem to take a daft route.

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Oxford Brookes University Restaurant, Gipsy Lane, Oxford

10:38am Thursday 12th March 2009

Reckless in the face of the deepening recession, I lunched on consecutive days last weekend at Quod (superb pollack with winter vegetables each time, since you ask). On both occasions, the place was full to busting.

The Black Boy, Headington

11:08am Thursday 5th March 2009

Political correctness that I cannot entirely reprehend presumably lies behind the decision to promote the Black Boy in Headington with the image of a horse rather than a human.

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The Eyston Arms, East Hendred

10:47am Thursday 26th February 2009

There’s a sign on an approach road into Oxford from the west advertising “the best Sunday lunch in the world (except your mum’s)”. While flattering to mothers everywhere, the come-on does not do the biz with me: I want any Sunday lunch I eat out to be much better than mum’s – the pursuit of excellence is the reason, after all, why one hasn’t stayed at home.

Woody Nook at Woodcote, near Wallingford

12:22pm Thursday 12th February 2009

While it sounds the ideal title for a children’s television programme about cuddly animals, Woody Nook is, in fact, the name of a 17-acre vineyard and an associated restaurant.

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The Brasserie at the Malmaison Hotel, Oxford

5:29pm Wednesday 4th February 2009

First I’ll give details of a rather marvellous offer. Spend £75 a couple on an à la carte meal in Malmaison’s restaurant on a Sunday evening and you can have a bed for the night in this luxurious hotel for just £1 – subject, of course, to availability. Rosemarie and I did consider trying it for ourselves, but since we live only half a mile away the idea seemed slightly absurd.

The Lamb at Satwell, near Henley

10:09am Thursday 29th January 2009

The chill wind of the economic recession is having its effect on restaurants everywhere, even those operated by celebrity chefs. Checking out Antony Worrall Thompson’s website on Monday, in connection with the article you are now reading on the Lamb at Satwell, I found that another of his catering operations – the Greyhound pub just up the road at Rotherfield Peppard – is no more. A terse message flashed up on the screen: “Due to the current economic climate we have had to close the Greyhound.”

The Swan, Long Hanborough

4:47pm Wednesday 21st January 2009

I liked The Swan Inn at Long Hanborough the moment I walked in on a freezing cold night – minus 7 it read on the car thermometer – and found not one but two huge log fires merrily burning in the bar.

Cafe Coco (The Royal Oxford)

4:05pm Wednesday 14th January 2009

The catering entrepreneur Clinton Pugh has offered great visual appeal to his customers in all of his bars, cafés and restaurants in Oxford.

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Lords of the Manor

10:39am Friday 12th December 2008

Denise Barkley enjoys a very special night as two talented chefs create a double gourmet delight at Lords of the Manor

High price for poor fish at Villandry, Bicester Village

4:02pm Wednesday 10th December 2008

Villandry sounds uncomfortably close to villainy – which is what many might consider this new restaurant’s unjustifiably high prices to be.

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Nando's, George Street, Oxford

3:40pm Wednesday 3rd December 2008

Before last week, my one experience of Nando’s had been a rather nasty meal at its Cowley Road operation shortly after it opened six or seven years ago in what had previously been the Prince of Wales pub. The sweet taste of the glutinous coleslaw remains with me to this day. As can be imagined, then, I didn’t exactly rush to sample the second Oxford branch when it opened at the beginning of the year at the west end of George Street, where the Opium Den used to be.