Charlbury is pretty much the first stony outcrop of the Cotswolds that you come to fleeing west from London. Not far from Oxford and cheek by jowl with ‘Chippy’ (Chipping Norton to you and me), the small town is set in a Kate-Moss-in-Hunter-wellies dreamtime painted in wisteria mauve, sage green and the honied tones of the local stone. You either live here or you want to.
The Bull sits in the centre of things. A ‘pub with rooms’, it belongs to the small, exclusive Public House group of largely urban and entirely pukka gastrodromes. As we pulled up to the postage-stamp car park I recalled that they feel like a little bit of the Cotswolds in central London. How well this might fare in situ, I wasn’t sure. Or perhaps they’d turn the tables and bring a touch of inner-city swank to the shires? Let’s hope not, I thought as we entered via the willow-fenced, fire-pit-snuggly garden out back.
I needn’t have worried. All was reassuringly authentic inside and not in an excessively arch way either. Welcoming shoulder-month fires played quietly in inglenooks, expensively washed plaster glowed in candle-lit corners and beautiful old floorboards provided charmingly on-the-wonk dining to a soundtrack of 1950s jazz and blues. Besides, we’d come for the defiantly big-city wine list, following our noses and rumours of really good pie.
We started with thick slabs of bread made with black treacle – sweet, bitter, good-butter-smeared crumbliness – to go with plump slices of juniper-cured trout belly and pickled cucumber. Scanning the nicely curated by-the-glass selection for suitable whites, we were tempted by a Central Otago Riesling (Prophet’s Rock, 2022) and a skin-contact wine from Campania (Fratelli Felix 2024). Our choice of Joseph Drouhin St-Véran was served a tad too cool but nonetheless proved a delightful trout tickler taking us effortlessly on to the pan-fried skate with confit fennel that followed. The fish cookery was exemplary but a heavy hand with the salt a tad dispiriting, something that even the emollient fennel and white burgundy struggled to put right.
The pie that followed more than justified the trip, however. Beef cheek and red-wine jus, it was all lardy-shardy sides crowned with nubbly knots of shortcrust and filled generously with melting meat. ‘Brassicas and hazelnut’ from the vegetarian options would have been nice to go with and we looked on enviously as the locals to our right tucked in along with their sausages and lentils. A bone-rattlingly intense Luberon red (Château de Mille’s St-Lucide, 2022) was up to the savoury heft of our pie (the lentils, too, no doubt). From there, the by-the-bottle list leads into trad 3Bs territory (Burgundy, Bordeaux and Barolo) with added, if pricey, US verve (Opus One or Sine Qua Non, anyone?) and less wallet-wrecking options like Yecla Monastrell (Familia Castaño) and Muscadet Sur Lie (Pierre Luneau-Papin).
We took our puds back out into the garden. A ‘Bull Whippy’ ice-cream cone to share with the hound was a little too ice-crystal crunchy but a rhubarb-and-custard bun was a delightfully elegant, al-dente fruit number in crisp choux. My dining companion expressed some sadness that it wasn’t more ‘of the people’, more of a Bird’s custard and nameless-pink-jam bun. You can take the boy out of central London …
Lunch for two including two glasses of wine (and half a cone for the dog) – £139.
The Bull Sheep Street, Charlbury, OX7 3RR; tel: +44 (0)1608 656 957
