#oxfork

Image: Oxfork

Hidden on the Magdalen Road is Oxfork, a quintessentially British café. It serves utterly delicious brunches and sweet treats throughout the week, and is now open Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings when it serves a variety of British tapas style dishes alongside mouthwatering drinks.

 Everything on offer is cooked up from locally sourced ingredients, which are of extremely high quality. Weekend brunches are particularly bustling at Oxfork, so be sure to get there early so you can enjoy the delights of ‘The All American’ pancakes as well as all the eggs you could possibly hope for.

As with most good things in my life, mother told me about this place. This shows the kind of punters you will find through it's doors. Chloe has created a sanctuary from the student culture to which the restaurant is placed in the centre, no-one with a hangover not interested in eating will be talking about the antics from the night before over your shoulder. 

Getting to the position Oxfork is in now has not been easy, starting with an old bike repair shop the transformation is remarkable, a constant and beautiful reminder of the restaurant heritage comes in the form of a bike wheel and fork chandelier as you walk though the door. The individuality and personality is clear, from the vinyl records used as clipboards for the daily menu, the mix-match plates or the chef bringing your meal.

The sense of community is also a very apparent aspect of Oxfork. A constant variation of local art work is on display throughout the restaurant for customers to buy, if sold Oxfork take zero commission. Thus creating the illusion of a constantly evolving restaurant making each experience different. I was acknowledged the moment I walked through the door, taken straight to a table and was asked what I was drinking. This level of service remained throughout the duration of the breakfast with my mother being her 'needed customer' self.

I went for the eggs benedict, it wasn't served with asparagus but where locally can you find asparagus at this time of year? One more thing Oxfork gets right, seasonal and local produce. The hollandaise sauce balanced to the two thick slices of cured ham, with the egg oozing all over place when you cut through it, however, the fresh sourdough edges were slightly burnt meaning towards the end of the dish as I used the bread to wipe the plate clean of the amazing flavours, I had that chard taste in my mouth. The plate was dishwasher clean though. My mother went for the pancakes with bacon and a egg. I saw her frustration growing as taking photos of the food was stopping her diving in. 

Oxfork has the capability to cater to most dietary requirements as all the food is made on site so do not feel you'll be eating salad again. When leaving, your attention is directed towards the necessary pantry items, eggs and cakes on sale. 

The price? My mum is a coffeeholic and went in for two cappuccinos', I'm a earl grey man so with service it came to £22. Bargain seeing as the food was cooked by owner/chef Chloe that attended 'Leiths cooking school' look it up, it's pretty good. 

For further details on opening times and direction please follow link. 

Know Oxfork? Central Oxford's most famous underground supper club? We got in touch in them. 

We: Can we have an exclusive event for our department? Promise we'll bring at least 15 people. They: Sure. We do themed dinners. What's your theme going to be? We: ....... One second.

... chair swiveled to face work colleagues..

We: Oxfork. Gastronomic Event. Need ideas for themed dinner. Work Colleagues: We have none. Just give us good food. We: Wow, that's helpful. Oh, hi Oxfork, it's us. We'll go for 'Parisian Chic'.

They sent us a tentative French menu.

We weren't impressed.

And that's because 1) we didn't really know what French food is all about (we're very informed about the desserts though), and 2) we were used to reading complicated menus which we considered 'impressive' and 'amazing' and 'innovative', just because they throw in names of the spices used in the dishes.

For enlightenment, we tied our shoe laces and embarked on a precarious journey across Roosevelt Drive, through the narrow opening between thorny prickly bushes that greeted us once we narrowly escaped getting flattened by massive trucks carrying scientific consumables and hordes of chavs on bikes. We dashed through the Carpark of Predictable Events to avoid getting stopped by suspicious or insane-looking hospital visitors and fellow work colleagues who will otherwise reluctantly greet you, and panted up the massive hill that will finally lead us to the meister, the guide, the fountain of knowledge for Good French Food: le Grand Frère!

Representative picture of le Grand Frere.

We: This is the menu. Is it not bland and boring? Yes, of course, it is. But how do we tell them diplomatically, tactfully and non-offensively, as it is not in our nature to be nice? Le Grand Frère: Zis is a very good menu! The dishes are Parisian. What is ze problem? We: Well, it just sounds really boring. Have a look at the menu of this other random underground supper club in London we've been following. They list all the ingredients in their dishes as if those are special ingredients that would not normally be there anyway. Then they throw in expensive-sounding stuff like truffles. We are thus deceived into thinking that the menu is very interesting and become convinced we should go to the dinner party. But this Oxfork menu? There is nothing 'complicated' about the dishes. We remain non-tantalised. Le Grand Frère: No, no. With French cuisine, ze dishes might sound simple, but it's very difficult to make very good simple dishes. Ze cooking techniques have to be advanced, and ze ingredients have to be fresh and of good quality. We: Oh, how interesting. Witness our faces shining with enlightenment. Very well. We accept this menu and we will see how they fare.

On the 20th of May, we visited Oxfork in their homes. We felt much gratitude that Oxfork opened their homes for us and even hired a waitress all the way from London to help out with the event.

Below are some shit quality pictures we managed to take before our phone flipped us off and committed seppuku with a smirk.

Le croque monsieur.

Trimmings for poule a pot. And one of the founders of Oxfork.

  French onion soup with gruyere crouton.

Condiments in cute repositories.

Poule au pot with spring vegetables and alioli.

The vegetarian alternative. Some sort of herby gratin.

Dark chocolate mousse and pâte sucrée biscuits.

Price: £25.00 per person, not including service charge.

Here's a run-down:

Food quality: Average, but we were pleased to be introduced to French onion soup.

Ambience: Low reddish lighting, lots of bookcases with filled with lots of cook books; furniture and tableware are bits and bops from everywhere; not our kind of ambience but it's different and that's good.

Service: Oxfork replies fast via e-mails most times and in person, they are gracious. They get bonus points for agreeing to doggybag food for a work colleague who thought she couldn't turn up, and extra bonus points for waiting an extra 30 minutes for us to get wine from the co-op.

Why you should have an Oxfork event: It's a unique experience? You might impress some of your work colleagues like we did? Variety is the spice of life?

Overall: 3 out 5.

We left Oxfork feeling the usual emotions: relieved that it wasn't a disaster. Le Grand Frere on the other hand was enraged. "That wasn't French food! And the poule au pot wasn't poule au pot! It was chicken tagine!"

The next day, he sent an e-mail out:

"I would like to invite all of you for a REAL French dinner or lunch this week end."

Who are we to say no?

Sans commentaire.

Table laid out. Guess what's for starters?

The most delicious foie gras we've ever had. Absolutely sublime. We would say we tasted paradise at each bite and chew, but paradise (according to the adverts) is a posh brothel surrounded by rivers of milk and honey, i.e. terribly boring and dull. We were delighted to learn that this foie gras was homemade; apparently le Grand Frere's mother gavages geese and ducks in her past time. We had seconds and thirds and fourths, and we would have had fifths and sixths and sevenths and eights and ninths, but more dishes awaited us.

Not just any dishes. Autoclaved dishes. Impressive indeed.

Noix de st jacques. Flavoursome. Texture was just right. Scallops are so loveable. We demolished our plates and then remembered that we forgot to take a picture. Thankfully, our neighbour - more restrained in dining manners - offered her plate for photography.

Pintade aux pommes and gratin dauphinois.

Our first time with a guinea fowl. It was a special moment.....

Baked and soft granny apples accompanied our bird. Interesting, but we could do without it.

Gratin? Yeah, okay. Gratin + nutmeg? Now we're talking.

Not three, not four, but five French cheeses. Taste the difference, biaaatttch.

And last...... but not least..........

The most amazing tarte au citron. It was divine. Words cannot describe how. It is an experience that must be lived. To write about it would be to do it injustice. We shed many tears, felt humbled and repentant, and made the decision to become better human beings.

Now the run-down:

Food: It started with paradise and ended with divine love.

Ambience: Newly renovated house and very nice.

Service: Our hosts made sure everything was perfect and that guests were comfortable. They even drove us from and back to Oxford. Such kindness and generosity can move mountains and trigger dormant volcanoes to erupt. We even had doggybags for foie gras and tarte au citron to relive the experience the next day. Excuse us while we dab our eyes and blow our noses.

Verdict: Best dinner party ever. The BEST ever.

So, this blog post is to thank Oxfork for introducing us to French cuisine and for igniting such anger in the pits of le Grand Frere's belly that he decided to host this most amazing dinner party just to prove his point. We should also mention that le Grand Frere did not take the day off and spent only 3 hours to prepare and cook everything and thus, he is indeed our hero.

Merci beaucoup, le Grand Frere.