Sunday dinner gets an international twist and curries favour with Tim Hughes and his famously fussy sons

While I love a roast as much as the next red-blooded Englishman, Sunday dinners can be a bit of a predictable experience.

I’ve lost count of the occasions where I’ve turned up salivating at the thought of a lovely hunk of pink lamb or moist beef, only to be confronted with a dried up scrag-end as tough as Lionel Messi’s left boot, or a sliver of grey matter thinner than a shrew’s wedding tackle.

What you want, of course, is loads of fresh, juicy meat; proper crisped-up roast vegetables, great gravy... and curry.

Well, that’s the philosophy at one Oxford hotel, which is pulling in the Sunday punters with an unbeatable international lunchtime buffet designed to appeal to everyone – but especially fans of a proper British roast and an authentic Indian curry.

Perched on a grassy mound in quaint suburban Iffley, The Tree Hotel looks the quintessential English country hotel – all gable ends, ornate brickwork and clipped foliage. So it comes as a surprise to find a team of chefs from Delhi and Mumbai holding court at its Annora restaurant, serving up a curry buffet which leaves most of the Cowley Road equivalents stalled on the grid in a cloud of chilli-smoke.

I headed down with my two hungry boys – as famous for their monstrous appetites as for their fussy tastes, and whose eating habits usually only converge at chip shops, fairground donut stalls or soulless franchises of a ubiquitous US takeaway chain. So while I feared the worse, I am pleased to report it all went rather well, they tucking into respectively, noodles and roast beef with all the trimmings, while I did two rounds of the curry buffet. We came out smiling, which, I confess, is a rare thing when eating out – though being able to let off steam in the garden play area (them, not me) helped keep the peace.

As for the food, well obviously it’s a buffet, so allowances have to be made, but I found it imaginative in range (a fresh salmon salad among the starters was a highlight) and everything else was pretty good too – even the pasta, which can struggle to keep its bite after an hour in a chafing dish. Constant replacement and replenishment keeps it all zingy and fresh.

I found the curry exceptionally good – a spicy lamb jalfrezi in particular, though a chicken korma was also fine, creamy and full of flavour without being cloying. The chicken was evidently good quality; no skimping there.

A saag paneer was also a delight, its chunks of Indian cheese having a lovely bite. There were dishes of spiced pilau rice, plain noodles and a mound of poppadoms and pickles to dip into, with fresh naan brought to the table.

The roast was better than most – the meat being suitably moist, though admittedly we were there early, and served with herb roast potatoes and steamed carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. Oh, and proper crispy Yorkshire puddings which tasted as good with a jalfrezi as with beef. I know, I know... but how can it be wrong when it tastes so good? And anyway, I was told the poppodoms also went well with the onion gravy and the bhajis with the carbonara.

On other days I hear they stretch to salmon kedgeree and Mongolian stir fries, water cress salads and chicken pie, all of which, I wager, taste great with tarka dhal and lime pickle. But that could just be me.

The puddings are great – with treacly Indian treats alongside comfort favourites like bread and butter pudding, ice cream and a freshly-prepared melt-in-the-mouth chocolate parfait.

If you consider yourself a roast or curry purist, you’ll enjoy the Tree Hotel – but it takes a strict diner not to go all fusion. Pasta, samosas and a slice of juicy beef anyone? Go on – you know you want to!

The Tree Hotel,
63 Church Way, Iffley Village, Oxford
OX4 4EY
01865 775974