Katherine MacAlister returns to an eaterie where the food is as good on the plate as it looks on the web

Despite the hype, I’d never really got on with Jacobs Inn in Wolvercote.

It was all a bit Emperor’s New Clothes for me. So while I enjoyed the refurbishment of the former Red Lion and the small-holding concept of keeping pigs and chickens on site, the food had never lived up to the rhetoric. It wasn’t bad, just not a place I wanted to revisit.

This changed when news of their new chef reached me, firing me with enough curiosity to get back on the horse and give it another go. Could the kitchen’s output finally match the owner’s vision?

Pictures of the new menu online had sent blood coursing through my overfed veins. So here I was in the capable hands of manager Luke Champion, at a nice table by the window in his full, cosy restaurant.

Before we’d even had time to sit down I’d ordered the smoked mackerel pate with grilled sourdough (£6.50), having dribbled over its ‘food porn’ picture online.

Served in a glass and topped with capers it was as heavenly to eat as it was to behold and I could have ploughed through an entire shelf of them. That wouldn’t have been polite though, and as my friend was already staring at me with a mixture of amusement and, what was it, fear or concern, as I began licking the spoon with a fervour matched only by my hungry cat at 6am, I desisted.

My bezzie had the glazed beetroot tart with goat’s curd, thyme, honey and sherry vinegar (£6.50), which was similarly well received. She finally understood the glazed look in my eyes.

Oh the relief – not just because each mouthful was a delight, but because I could relax and enjoy Jacobs Inn for what it was, a lovely pub with lovely food.

What to have next led to much head scratching but finally the specials won out: the autumn salad with grilled artichokes, squash, baby spinach, toasted pine nuts and walnut yoghurt dressing (£12) and the pan-fried Brixham seabream fillets with butternut squash gratin, baby spinach and chive butter sauce (£15.50), accompanied by a lovely bottle of Chianti Marchesi De Frescobaldi.

The salad needed more dressing, which subsequently arrived in a small pot, but it did nothing to mar the overall experience – a tasty and fresh meal from a beautifully-designed menu.

New head chef Chris Kennedy, a Jeremy Mogford protegee c/o Browns and Quod, and more recently Hawkwell House, has obviously been given free rein to make his mark.

He persuaded us to have dessert and after some feeble protestations we agreed to share a passion fruit crème brûlée (£6.50) and were delighted with the resulting sweet/sour fight between the sharpness of the passionfruit and the creaminess of the brûlée.

The only problem was that, having revisited the website to write this review, I spotted some mouth-watering new dishes to try. So I have booked another table to carry on where I left off. At this rate I’ll be there until Christmas.

Jacobs Inn, 130 Godstow Road, Wolvercote, Oxford. 
01865 514333. jacobs-inn.com

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