Stoke Row Restaurant Guide

This “fabulous” and “colourful” Chilterns gastroboozer “consistently delivers” – even well into its fourth decade in business. “Look out for the music nights” combining “imaginative pub food” with “live performances by artists far beyond what you’d expect from a rural pub” – but then again, this isn’t just any pub: it’s famously run by chef-proprietor Paul Clerehugh (ex-of glam rockers Sweet), and Kate Winslet hosted her wedding breakfast here.

In summer 2023, citing the need to ‘slow down’, TV chef Antony Worrall Thompson bowed out from his Oxfordshire gastropub after nearly two decades at the helm (the latter part of which was overshadowed by controversies relating to its anti-vaxxer stance, and, more recently, a worrying hygiene rating). While David Brown, who heads up Marlow’s Royal Oak has stepped into AWT’s shoes (the latter will remain on hand as a consultant), head chef Jamie Webber remains from the previous line-up, which should ensure continuity when it comes to the popular venue’s “generous” and “well-cooked” pub grub.

In November 2022, after 15 years at the helm, Stephen Luscombe dramatically handed over the reins of this pretty former pub with a foodie reputation to local boy Ben Watson (whose CV includes the acclaimed Core by Clare Smyth) and Priya Arora-Watson (a former FOH at London’s famed Gymkhana). By all accounts there is “little to suggest any adverse change” now it‘s running under an abridged name – and indeed, for fans, the local, seasonal food is “even better” now, with the “brilliant set menu” (£23 per person for two courses, £28 per person for three) representing very “good value given that prices everywhere have gone stratospheric”.

2023 Review: “A brilliant location” – on a picture-perfect stretch of lush Thames riverbank – is the justification for maintaining the listing of this Thames Valley veteran, on the fringe of Goring. On a sunny day, there are few nicer places to be. Its “classic Italian menu”? Not much commented on (nor, to be fair, criticised) and not the main point.

2022 Review: For “restaurant-quality food in a lovely country setting” head to this country pub, a few miles from Henley-on-Thames. The venue has been serving locals since 1860, and continues to draw positive reports for its simple yet refined seasonal plates.

“The cheese toasty eaten in a cowshed is excellent” at this “Home Counties middle-class rural equivalent of street food” on a family-owned dairy farm, with hay bales to perch on. It’s pretty basic, so you need to “wrap up in cold weather as it’s in an open-sided barn” – and you’ll “need to navigate around the Audis, Volvos and Mercedes in the car park”.