Buckingham Restaurant Guide

2022 Review: You can eat like a Rothschild at this gastropub on the Waddeston estate, dining on meat from the estate’s farms and vegetables from Baron Rothschild’s walled garden at Eythrope. The pub serves “really excellent food” and is set in “pleasant countryside”, with profits going to support the historic Waddesdon Manor, now owned by the National Trust while the Baron retains the estate. There is also afternoon ‘teapas’ – a selection of savoury small plates and more traditional scones and cakes.

2023 Review: “The team is small but work incredibly hard to create beautifully presented dishes that always hit the spot” at this “lovely pub” between the Chilterns and the Cotswolds, where Matt Gill’s cuisine provides “excellent food” from an à la carte menu that, while “rustic”, bears no relation to pub grub.

2022 Review: This rural pub (complete with beams and roaring fire, and also accommodation) in a lovely Buckinghamshire village still achieves solid ratings, and – notwithstanding gripes from the occasional reporter about its takeover by Oakman Inns in late 2019 – most feedback rates the food as “very good”.

Mike & Imogen North’s thatched inn set deep in the Oxfordshire countryside is the epitome of a “very good gastropub”, praised for its “superb food, attentive and discreet staff and lovely surroundings”. They do serve ‘Pub Classics’ as well as Sunday Lunch, but where it really comes into its own is in the multi-course meals that have established it as a regular feature in the Harden’s Top 100 Best UK Restaurants listing.

“Cosy even in winter”, this “canvas structure” makes a quirky destination, being part of a garden centre near Bicester. All reports say it “makes an interesting venue” and has “a good choice of food” too, with “great atmosphere and lovely staff”. For a “tasty brunch” or “enjoyable afternoon tea” it’s highly popular, but the food’s more ambitious than it might sound (“a faultless lunch included cod cheeks in tempura, meltingly braised beef with pommes Anna and two proper puds”). “Thankfully, we’re bound to need something else for the garden soon!”.

2024 Review: “Splendid surroundings for a plentiful and tasty afternoon tea” are again noted as a highpoint at this Jacobean/Georgian stately home spa hotel, with grounds laid out originally by Capability Brown and nowadays owned by the National Trust. Top Tip – “they are happy to give you a box for anything you can’t finish!”

Two minutes from the station, a scion from the dynasty behind the famous Brilliant Indian restaurant in Southall has spread her wings to open a 150-cover venue in the shiny new Unity Place development in late 2023; dusting off some of her family’s oldest recipes (and there’s an in-house microbrewery too). No survey feedback as yet, but in her June 2024 review, The Guardian’s Grace Dent declared it one of the best things to have happened to Milton Keynes in ages – “absolutely charming” once you leave the exterior streetscape behind, with “light, thoughtful cooking that determinedly sets out to incapacitate you, with lovely, kind service”.

“You will want to lick the plate” if you brunch (the highpoint) at one of Yotam Ottolenghi’s inspired deli-cafés, whose creation in 2002 helped created the TV fame of the owner, and started to popularise the Middle Eastern-influenced cuisine that’s swept London and even now is seen as fashionable. The formula is little changed: “tasty, healthy and yummy dishes” that are “beautifully flavoured” but “a bit on the pricey side”. “Ottolenghi is the master of flavoursome veg (with more veg choices than at most non-veg restaurants)” and, in particular “the cakes are wonderful!”. (Also, “they’re great on allergens.”). On the downside, “space is tight” and the “ambience could be more relaxed”. There’s also a feeling in some quarters that “Yotam has become a brand and it shows”, with food that is “good but after a while same-y”.

“A hidden gem in the Buckinghamshire countryside” – this thatched pub has a “beautiful” village location, despite being just five miles outside of Aylesbury. A small fan club holds it in high esteem, proclaiming its “fabulous value and super atmosphere”. Chef Tom Moody is one of the two partners running the pub since 2021, and provides a menu that’s more pub-appropriate than pub-grub (e.g. Spiced, glazed lamb’s neck, Braised Beef Cheek, Teriyaki Duck Breast with Black Pudding Bon Bon).