Banbury, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

“Very busy” Cotswolds pub with “well-prepared food” at “very reasonable prices” that is particularly popular as a classic weekend destination to avail yourself of their “generous Sunday roast”. Top Menu Tip – “the double-baked cheese soufflé is a standout”; “Cherry and Almond Tart as well as the chocolate truffles are flavoursome without being sickly sweet”.

Highly rated village pub on the edge of the Cotswolds from Richard & Solanche Craven where “originality and local resourcing are dominant concerns” – “Richard’s cookery is always spot-on, and his love of game shines through in the fantastic dishes he serves up”. In late 2025 the couple launched a second venture in the village: a daytime bakery, ‘Ferment & Flour’, that turns into ‘Ricardo Bastardo’s’, a trattoria using English produce, in the evening.

“Really deserves to be up there with the best” – a “very attractive” restaurant-with-five-flashy-rooms set in Georgian premises, and luring diners to this quaint market town betwixt Stratford-upon-Avon and Chipping Norton. There’s considerable flair to the British cooking (they offer à la carte or a tasting menu), which nods to honest produce like trout and quail.

“The food is delicious, the place is lovely, as are the people” who run this historic pub-with-rooms in a Cotswolds-fringe village – dating from 1637, it provided Winston Churchill with a handy lunchtime escape when staying at nearby Blenheim Palace in the 1930s. It’s been smartened up by owners Jim & Claire Alexander since they took over in 2012, with the kitchen run by chef Adam Brown. Feedback is somewhat limited, but all rate it consistently highly.

At last and after a substantial refurb – (which reputedly cost new owner Daniel Ede £4million) this boutique townhouse hotel near Blenheim Palace is back and its restaurant, Nest (geddit?) “is returning to previous culinary standards – with an updated, modern British menu” and “while not terribly cheap” fans say “the cooking compares very favourably with many other places in Oxfordshire”. “The staff are very friendly and the newly refurbished dining room is a pleasure to dine in”.

Limited but upbeat feedback this year on this tiny Cotswolds dining room, in the converted first floor of a house, where a maximum of 11 can be seated at once. “Each taster-course is lovingly prepared and served by Mark the owner. The setting is small and intimate, sit at the counter if it’s just the two of you”.