Thame Restaurant Guide

Run by keen wildlife photographer and one-man-band Frederic Desmette, and housed in a charming 16th-century cottage, “La Chouette remains a solid outpost of Belgian cooking”, where top menu tips include “the best Coquilles St. Jacques and halibut you’ll find (at a price, but worth it)”. If your wallet is looking a little thin, go for the ‘Prix d’Ami’: a starter, main course and dessert for just £29.50.

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.

It’s the end of a storied era at this famous Oxfordshire manor house – a permanent fixture on the annual Harden’s 100 list of the UK’s best restaurants – which is to close for 18 months: from January 2026 until summer 2027. Its original founder, 75-year-old Raymond Blanc, is stepping back from his role as chef-patron to become a “lifetime ambassador” and there will be a “visionary redevelopment” by owners Belmond (part of French-owned luxury goods conglomerate LVMH) who acquired it in 2014. Opened 41 years ago, it has long been a leader of the British gastronomic scene, a training kitchen for generations of young chefs and a pioneer of sustainable cuisine. It’s a lifetime work that helped Raymond earn his Légion d’honneur in 2013 in recognition by La Patrie of his services to culinary excellence. As to the future: according to the press release: “The redevelopment will allow Le Manoir to evolve for the future, to meet the needs of the modern guest while staying true to its soul and values. It is not simply a renovation, but a reinvestment into sustainability, in creativity, and in the spirit of excellence that has defined us”.

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”.

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!”

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: “Foraged food prepared over a fire: unbeatable?” – Nick Mash’s higgledy-piggledy village inn is “an absolute treasure of a place”, with “really interesting, special cooking” on a purpose-built wood-fired grill that helps achieve outstanding results. It’s “well worth the trip” to the Chilterns, “(and the beautiful rooms mean it’s worth the stay, too)”. We’ve rated it in the hope that it can maintain the high standards set by former chef Jon Parry, who departed in mid-2022 after five years at the helm.

2022 Review: Despite its weird and wonderful decor, this lavishly decked out hotel not far from Oxford – a fixture of the area for over a quarter of a century – attracts relatively little feedback nowadays. It’s all still positive though, especially when it comes to the Thai dining room (there’s also a more traditional, British one). Service is “very engaged” and the classic twelve-dish sharing menu “well presented and flavoured food that reflects the cuisine”, without being “touristy”.

2023 Review: Chef-patron Olivier Bouet, who had presented “excellent rustic French cuisine” at this Chilterns village gastropub for five years, recently moved on, and the new owners reopened in July 2022, announcing their plans for an ‘eclectic modern British menu with South African influence and popular grill favourites. Every item on the menu will be made on the premises’. It’s a big change of style, hence for the time being we’ve left it unrated.

“Definitely a good choice if you’re in the area” – i.e. just five miles from the dreaming spires of Oxford – this “very comfortable country pub” boasts one of the best gardens in these parts and is particularly appealing come summer. Some feel the menu is “limited” and “relatively expensive”, albeit “generally good with some unusual dishes”, much local sourcing, and a fair selection of veggie-friendly options.

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.

2022 Review: “Some pubs in the Cotswolds really go above and beyond, and this is one of them” – Steven Sanderson’s 400-year-old thatched village boozer with rooms (and garden) offers “lots of interesting small dishes as well as the usual suspects” (notably grass-fed British steak).

“The food is sensational” at this legendary Oxford outfit, which delighted its many fans by reopening last September after a three-year hiatus while founders Rufus & Ladd Thurston switched to a retail operation as Elle’s Deli, in search of a better work/life balance. With their children a little older, they have relaunched their Thai project with most of the beloved classic dishes, such as – according to one report – “the best confit duck Penang probably in the world!”. But it’s still only open three days a week, with the familiar three-month waiting list for an evening booking.

This “big old pub with a jolly, slightly bohemian atmosphere” is a well-known “gastro-pub (with the emphasis on gastro)”. It achieves solid and still-plentiful support in our annual diners’ poll, despite a feeling that “the food falls well short of the standards at its London siblings, Anchor & Hope and Canton Arms”. Top Menu Tip – “the suet crust steak-and-ale pie to share is a lovely, lovely thing”.