Living Room - Oxford, The

The Living Room is part of the old Oxford Castle redevelopment, with a 350 capacity bar and 178 covers in the restaurant. A distinctive feature is the The Study, membership by invitation, no fee charged. It has a hunting lodge feel to it and is also available for private hire at certain times. Visiting musicians offer non-intrusive entertainment on some nights.

In the main restaurant a menu that steers a broad course between brasserie and gastropub gives wide choices. Essentially this is good, honest robust and stylish food, with no frills.

Starters are likely to contain Port of Lancaster smoked salmon, French onion soup, Thai fish cakes and Peking duck. A section of the menu is called rather touchingly 'home comforts' and with bangers and mash, macaroni cheese and fish and chips with mushy peas it is not difficult to see why.

Main courses follow a more adventurous course and feature such dishes as 21-day aged British fillet steak, roast suckling pig, and lamb cutlets. Desserts follow the English way and include Eton Mess, warm chocolate fudge cake and lemon meringue tart.

A comely selection of wines includes a monthly changing range of ten available by glass or bottle. For those to whom life is not complete without champagne at some stage of the day there is a formidable list from which to choose, anywhere between £35-250. Port enthusiasts will delight in the Fonseca vintage'85 at £108 a bottle.

Also impressive is the Sunday brunch menu, with all the usual suspects on board, a very sound assembly of the hairs of the dog, the whole ménage a positive invitation to go out and get thoroughly plastered the previous evening.

Not too keen on the regimented rows layout in the restaurant but it is a small price to pay for such well presented food in a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere.