Witney, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

2023 Review: “High-quality pub food” and a “lovely setting by the river” earn high ratings across the board for this traditional Cotswolds inn. “On a brilliant sunny bank holiday Saturday, The Swan was rammed but the amazing staff never missed a beat – the chef & kitchen churned out really delicious food, and nobody was less than delighted with their choices”. Top Tip – “the sticky toffee reaches new heights of orgasmic satisfaction”.

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”.

2023 Review: “A foodie gem”, this well-known eighteenth-century pub in a village on the outskirts of Oxford has been going through a period of flux, hence we’ve removed a rating for the time being. High-profile chef Jon Parry joined in summer 2022, after our annual diners’ poll had concluded, having made a name for himself cooking over an open fire at The Mash Inn in Buckinghamshire, and declared his ambition to ‘turn The White Hart into something really special’. Four months later, owner Baz Butcher announced his intention to sell up and retire to France.

“Some of the finest pub food around, well worth a detour” – this old village pub near Burford was relaunched nine years ago by Peter Creed and Tom Noest, who reopened it in 2017. Its menu divisions describe the offering well, with in each case a handful of ‘bites’, ‘starters’, ‘pizza’, ‘classics’, ‘mains’, ‘steak’ and ‘sides’.

2024 Review: A “beautiful village pub (with rooms) in the Cotswolds” that’s often “packed to the rafters”; local boys Peter Creed and Tom Noest took it over in 2017 – with the latter turning out “all the modern pub classics delivered with panache, along with some more unusual offerings” (“venison scrumpets”, anyone?); add in “smiling service”, and a beer garden overlooking the open countryside, and it’s an “outstanding” proposition all-round.

“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.

2023 Review: This “picturesque riverside venue” on Oxford’s Osney Island (which opened in 1871 as The Waterman) is notable for its “laid-back but beautifully presented vegetarian food, full of flavours from a varied and interesting menu”. “I’m not a vegetarian myself but most definitely hope to be back”. Top Tip – “the whipped goats’ cheese”.

Humbly billed on its website as ‘Oxford’s Most Beautiful Restaurant’, this former Victorian florists’ – just outside the city-centre as you head north – has a gorgeous greenhouse-style interior and has been packed out for four decades now. Feedback on its Mediterranean cuisine, however, is perennially patchy and indifferent and this year is no exception.

A substantial 17th-century parsonage in the city centre, now a plush boutique hotel with a “charming atmosphere and well-chosen art on the walls”. Its Grill is “an excellent all-rounder with a good choice of well-executed dishes”. Afternoon tea is also on the agenda, and “one set tea is quite enough to share between two with an extra pot of tea added”.

A meal at this “great location on the roof of the Ashmolean” makes the perfect culmination of a mooch around the museum (or a visit in its own right) – but it can seem a little “mediocre unless you’re outside on the terrace”.

This “calm and pleasantly traditional” bistro in a sidestreet close to the city centre “never seems to disappoint”, with its combination of “charming, professional service, great wine and really excellent food” – “set lunch is remarkably good value at £21.50 for 3 courses” (main courses are mostly £20-30 each). Top Menu Tip – “try the Lobster Bisque”.

“Rightly an Oxford institution”, this self-service café with a “student vibe” is a “go-to place for a good-value wholesome brunch in a buzzing atmosphere”; sit inside on trestle tables or “outside in the sun, surrounded by the architecture that makes Oxford famous”, as you enjoy “fab cake” and “tempting” mains, with a “great choice from vegan to Asian curries and lovely cakes”. Fans are “glad to see it has survived” thus far – indeed some 15,500 of them signed up to save the venue, which remains at the heart of an eviction dispute between café owner Will Pouget, and the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, where it sits, and whose landlord wants to create a larger social enterprise in the space; having already been adjourned in April 2025 due to the complexity of determining if the land is consecrated (the pivotal point), the case was listed to recommence at the High Court shortly before we went to press.

“Lively and convenient venue”, “well-placed in the centre of Oxford” and serving brasserie fare in the “attractive surroundings” of the Old Bank Hotel. Ratings here are often dragged down by the odd report of “variable” results – the “good-value set lunch menu” goes down best with reporters and helps make it a popular choice for business lunchers as well as loving parents with their bookish offspring.

“Absolutely lovely” – “Tucked away down a lane”, this restored Georgian malthouse overlooking the Evenlode valley is “everything that you could want a Cotswold Pub now Restaurant with Rooms to be”: “a stunning place with real atmosphere” and high marks too to the accomplished cuisine, be it from the high quality à la carte menu, or the more ambitious seven-course tasting menu for £90 per person. It’s not a case of fancy combinations – you’re paying for high quality protein that’s been sensitively prepared.

“Delicious seasonal food with interesting ingredients” can be enjoyed on occasion in the “splendid, ‘not quite formal, not quite informal’, setting” of the Hibbert family’s Cotswolds manor – a restaurant-cum-spa retreat-cum-beauty business. “Everyone is trying very hard to please and it shows, with that ‘local’ feel to everything” – however reported incidents of “amateurish” or “chaotic” service and meals of variable quality undermine a higher rating.

Even critics of the “eyewatering prices”, say “you can’t help but admire how well this take on a country pub in ‘Bamfordshire’ is done” and most diners at Lady Bamford’s super-scenic Cotswolds Inn “love the experience, saying it’s so laid back and with great food”. In June 2025 – too late for feedback in our annual diners’ poll – the kitchen welcomed Callum Graham as Executive Chef, who joined from the much accoladed Bohemia in Jersey, and with a view to ‘helping elevate our culinary experiences across the business’ with the aim to ‘champion excellence in sustainable, seasonal dining across its portfolio’.

With its “fantastic country pub atmosphere”, this well-known Cotswolds watering hole has long been a key venue for the Chipping Norton set; and current owners Matt & Katie Beamish run it as part of a trio of pubs-with-rooms in the district (with the Milton Hare and the Crown at Church Enstone). All reports acknowledge “tasty food that doesn’t cost the earth”, although the most sceptical diner feels that “it mixes pub standards with more ambitious fare (maybe too ambitious at the top end as those dishes failed to zing… maybe it was chef’s night off)”.

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”.