Tapas enjoyed in Oxford at La Tasca and La Plaza
	5:44pm Wed 30 Apr 08
	I was very taken with tapas on my first and so far only visit to Spain. That you could stuff yourself with all manner of tasty small dishes - as a mere prelude to dinner proper - struck me as an approach to catering the Brits would do well to emulate. Since then, tapas restaurants have sprung up all over the place, the majority run by chains. Of these, La Tasca is perhaps the best-known. I have been a big fan of the Oxford branch since it opened in the Oxford Castle development. They won my allegiance on the rain-lashed launch night by dishing out lashings of sangria and paella to the sodden crowds.

	The Swan at Streatley
	9:41am Thu 24 Apr 08
	It was a couple of years since I had last eaten at the Swan in Streatley, which boasts an up-market restaurant featuring dishes produced from impeccably sourced ingredients. The arrival of a new chef, Andrew West-Letford, formerly of Danesfield House, in Marlow, suggested this might be a good time to reacquaint myself with it. I had another reason to visit, in connection with an unusual celebration taking place last Saturday night in the former Magdalen College barge moored alongside the hotel and now used for the Swan's special functions. I shall tell you about that in Gray Matter next week.
	User Rating: 10/10

	Hollybush, Corn Street, Witney
	3:44pm Tue 15 Apr 08
	As I have mentioned here before, Stagecoach's admirable 100 bus service has had the effect of transforming Witney into a suburb of Oxford. Whereas one once needed to set aside the best part of a day to visit the town (I know from 35 years of going to my dentist there), you can now whizz across every half an hour. The ease of access is particularly pleasing because of the range of good places to patronise there. Yes, I am thinking of Waitrose (when is Oxford going to get a branch?) but more of establishments serving food ready to eat.
	User Rating: 10/10

	THE KINGHAM PLOUGH
	10:19am Thu 10 Apr 08
	In January of last year, Kingham was named favourite village in England by the discerning readers of Country Life. At the time, the Plough pub did not contribute significantly to its reputation, at least as far as foodies were concerned. In the edition announcing Kingham's success, the magazine declared baldly: "A traditional drinking pub. No food, except sandwiches."

	Witney Lakes Resort restaurant
	9:57am Thu 3 Apr 08
	I wrote a glowing review of the Witney Lakes Resort's restaurant - then known as Green's - shortly after its opening and ate there three or four times in the weeks following. For some reason - certainly nothing to do with the restaurant's quality or my tastes - I had not been back until last week, a gap of more than 12 years, as I discovered when I dug out the relevant cutting from our library. Smiling out from it, in his blue and white striped apron, was head chef Sean Parker. This is the same gentleman you can see today in the picture on the right. It is reassuring to see such loyalty, in a trade characterised by a high turnover of staff. In Sean's case, the long stay presumably has something to do with the fact that he is also a director of the business, which is run in conjunction with a golf course and leisure centre.

	The White Horse Inn, Duns Tew
	3:52pm Wed 19 Mar 08
	It would seem that I pay reviewing visits to the White Horse Inn at Duns Tew at intervals of roughly ten years, to judge from evidence in our cuttings library at Newspaper House. A sensible critic, I suppose, might have dug these articles from the archive ahead of the lunchtime trip to the pub with three old friends. That way I would have been able to talk authoritatively on what we could see around us, rather than making wild and inaccurate statements based entirely on guesswork.
	User Rating: 10/10

	The Black Boys in Hurley, near Henley
	10:25am Thu 6 Mar 08
	The Black Boys Inn in Hurley styles itself "a corner of France in the English countryside". It could as well be called a chunk of Devon and Cornwall that has strayed to Berkshire. While the former appellation acknowledges this splendid restaurant's commitment to all that is best in France's traditional cuisine bourgeoise, the latter description is surely justified for a restaurant whose culinary success depends so much on the fishy products of the South West.

	Giraffe, George Street, Oxford
	9:43am Thu 28 Feb 08
	The publicity that the Giraffe restaurant chain puts out about itself is so tiresomely twee that I am tempted to give the new Oxford branch a pasting on that basis alone. Go to their website (www.giraffe.net) and you will see the sort of yucky guff I mean, much of it concerned with smiling. It includes badly scanned verse: "I've thought about my smile/and realised all its worth/single smile like mine or yours/could travel round the earth! So if you feel a smile begin/don't leave it undetected/start an epidemic quick/and get the world infected." Doesn't it make you feel like throwing up?
	User Rating: 2/10

	Spice Valley, Gloucester Green, Oxford
	9:34am Thu 21 Feb 08
	Thus far, Spice Valley is proving one of the better-kept secrets of Oxford. For some weeks I have been recommending it to friends; not one of them had heard of it, though it opened before Christmas. It is in part of what came to be known as the Old School House, in Gloucester Green. Previously it was used by the Oxford Information Centre; before that, as bus station offices; and from its construction in Victorian days up until the 1930s as the Central Boys' School.
	User Rating: 2.1/10

	The Jam Factory, Oxford
	10:01am Thu 14 Feb 08
	Restaurant, bar, arts centre - The Jam Factory, in Park End Street, neatly combines three areas of prime interest to me, privately and professionally.
	User Rating: 7/10

	Joe's Bar and Restaurant, Summertown
	11:19am Thu 7 Feb 08
	Considering that Joe's in Summertown opened nearly three years ago, I have been remarkably slow off the mark about testing what's on offer there. A moment's reflection ought to have convinced me it was somewhere worth patronising. I had, after all, warmly reviewed Joe's sister - this should, I suppose, be brother - operation in Cowley Road when owner Robert Ciampoli-Messiou opened the place in 1998, and have happily returned more than once in the years since.
	User Rating: 10/10

	La Vina, Wallingford
	12:20pm Thu 24 Jan 08
	I began 2008 eating in a hotel fashioned from a former prison - the Malmaison, of course - and have since enjoyed meals at other restaurants that used to be something else. They include a former garage (Brown's), a bank (Quod), a church (Bicester's Old Chapel, reviewed last week) and a school (the new Spice Valley in Gloucester Green - comment coming soon).

	The Old Chapel, Bicester
	10:35am Thu 17 Jan 08
	There is a pleasing austerity to the design of Bicester's newest restaurant that appropriately reflects its status as a former church. The Old Chapel occupies a building, tucked just off the Market Square, that has been an ornament to the architecture of the town since 1729. The Congregational (later United Reform) Church welcomed worshippers for one year short of a quarter of a millennium. The last bent the knee there at a closing service on June 25, 1978.
	User Rating: 2.7/10

	The Fishes, North Hinksey, Oxford
	10:31am Thu 10 Jan 08
	An energetic bout of rock 'n' rolling at a party to see in the New Year helped stimulate a powerful appetite that demanded speedy satisfaction when I rose, not far short of noon, on January 1. Since modest quantities of alcohol had preceded - and, indeed, followed - the dancing, it hardly seemed prudent to drive in search of lunch. But who needed to, with a smashing pub like the Fishes a 15-minute stroll away at North Hinksey?
	User Rating: 8.7/10
Reader comment (1)

	The High Table, the Eastgate Hotel, Oxford
	10:18am Thu 13 Dec 07
	I never went into Merton's Bar at the Eastgate Hotel in Oxford's High Street - and, judging by what I could see through its windows, neither did anyone else.
	User Rating: 9.3/10

The Oxford Arms, Kirtlington

3:03pm Wednesday 5th December 2007

Regular readers of this column will probably be aware that I am not much of a fan of the so-called gastropub. This is an overused appellation, which lazy licensees believe entitles them to charge more than twice what it's worth for their grub, while conveniently forgetting the pub side of the business altogether. Let me say straightaway that the Oxford Arms is not a gastropub. When I first made its acquaintance under the present landlord three years ago, it referred to itself in promotional material as "A 19th-century English Pub and Eating House". I liked the directness of this. I also liked the place very much. I signed off my laudatory Oxford Times article by saying: "I am just going to have to go back - soon."

User Rating: 8/10

	Chez Gérard, George Street, Oxford
	7:29am Thu 29 Nov 07
	We Oxford oldies still remember these George Street premises as the Army surplus stores, though they have been occupied for more than ten years since by a link of the Caffé Uno 'Italian' restaurant chain. Now owners Paramount Restaurants have turned the place into an outpost of their French-style Brasserie Chez Gérard. This metaphorical crossing of the Alps has perhaps been performed in response to fierce competition in Oxford's corner of pseudo-Italy, where Ask, Zizzi and Bella Italia all vie for custom within a hundred yards or so of each other. But then I see from a quick web search that Paramount appears to be making the switch in other parts of the country too . . .
	User Rating: 3.5/10
Reader comment (1)

	Eight at The Thatch, run by the winners of TV's The Restaurant
	4:18pm Wed 21 Nov 07
	Everyone wants to know how Jane and Jeremy Hooper are shaping up in the new business they 'won' as victors in Raymond Blanc's recent BBC2 reality show The Restaurant.
	User Rating: 5/10