Students, townspeople and visitors all share their enthusiasm for Oxford's liberal helping of pubs, cafés, bistros, wine bars and restaurants which serve food and drink in a huge variety of settings and styles. In the city centre, the newly opened Oxford Castle site provides a dramatic setting for a host of cutting-edge restaurants from Carluccio's to the Ha! Ha! Bar & Canteen. They are grouped around the imposing walls of Malmaison Hotel, housed in the former Oxford Prison, which itself is open to non residents.
There is more contemporary chic in historic settings at Quod Brasserie & Bar in the High, part of the award winning Old Bank Hotel, and the elegant Grand Café on the site of England's first coffee house - also in the High. Others enjoying interesting settings include the Eagle & Child pub, the regular meeting place of J R R Tolkien and his literary group, the Inklings, Gee's restaurant housed in a Victorian conservatory that was once a florist's shop and Freud in Walton Street, which offers drinks and live music in a neo-classical former church. In the Vault in St Mary’s Church you can lunch in the birthplace of the University of Oxford; and the Covered Market offers the opportunity for cosy teas (at Georgina’s) or a homely plate of poached eggs on toast (at Brown’s Café.). Alternatively, follow the locals’ example and graze from salad bar to cookie shop and from sausages to smoked salmon at the different market stalls. Look around you …almost everyone is eating.
The Big Bang offers varieties of mash (pureed potato) and a plethora of ‘bangers’ ie sausages, and the famous Browns Restaurant on Woodstock Road continues to feed hungry students (+ parents) in a civilised manner as it has done for 30 years or more.
Riverside views are a speciality at the Cherwell Boathouse Restaurant and at Aziz Pandesia, which has its own pontoon on the Thames at Folly Bridge.
And what could be better than a traditional English tea – whether served in the elegant Edwardian Randolph Hotel or the more homely The Rose, the Nosebag or the Vault?
Oxford locals and visitors ‘in the know’ explore and enjoy excellent and authentic cuisine from around the world in restaurants along the Cowley Road. This is where the young crowd hang out.
There are more details on the Visit Oxfordshire website.
