Cirencester Restaurant Guide

2017 Review: Tucked away in Cirencester’s old post office, this rare, rural Japanese café, with glass doors opening onto a town-centre terrace, has filled a real gap in the market locally; it’s a top destination for bento boxes, noodles and “excellent sushi”.

Cooking of “exceptional quality” ensures that this long-established open kitchen/deli venue in the town centre is “always busy, with a vibrant atmosphere”. It’s “great” for breakfast and lunches, with dinner served on Fridays and Saturdays.

2018 Review: “Romantically located behind the main road” down an alleyway, this cosy town-centre bistro is “part of the adjacent family butchers” – “meat dishes are king” but all the locally sourced fare here is consistently highly rated.

“Very good Mediterranean cooking at a reasonable price” and “an incredibly friendly team to look after you” both win praise for this three-year-old, whose sharing plates approach is “somewhere between fine dining and relaxed bistro”. “It serves tapas in two sizes, often quite original (slow-cooked rabbit terrine with macadamia nuts, chocolate-coated venison with Jerusalem artichoke puree, etc)” and is “a welcoming place, with widely spaced tables”.

Owned by the same folk as The Village Pub, just across the road, this “very fancy” boutique hotel turns out “solid cooking with bold flavours”, and uses “a lot of produce straight from the garden”.

2018 Review: “Best enjoyed in winter to cosy up by the roaring log fires”, but “well worth the detour” at any time, this “incredibly friendly” gastroboozer gains plaudits for hearty “pub food as it should be”.

A “charming, lovely and well-run village pub” that “has had its ups and downs, but seems to be on an ‘up’ at the moment”; and serving an “interesting but not over-ambitious menu”.

2018 Review: Slap bang in a picture-perfect Cotswold village, a charming destination for some “top-class pub dining” (including a “very good” lunch) from a “wide menu” full of local suppliers.

“An atmospheric and charming farm shop (in a converted petrol station, on the A419) serving fabulous breakfasts and lunches with very tasty hamburgers from local meat”. “It’s been great to see JN progress from offering ice cream from an airstream caravan to butcher, deli, burger bar, Xmas tree seller...” (is there anything they can’t do?!).

“A superb pub, part of the Rectory Hotel” opposite, and likewise revamped by music biz owner Alex Payne a few years back. Whether it’s for the “first-class Sunday lunch (if you can get in)” or the “cosy” ambiance it’s “well worth a visit” by (nearly) all accounts.