The vegetarian menu at The Gardeners Arms may have fooled her friends but KATHERINE MACALISTER knows she’s on to a winner.

That is one of the best burgers I’ve ever eaten,” my friend said happily, tucking into her enormous hand-made patty, ketchup smeared around her chops.

“But you can’t eat it,” she said to our veggie companion, “so you’ll have to have something else.” Picture her face when said carnivore (think Tyrannosaurus rex but female) was then told everything on the menu was vegetarian, including her burger.

“I would never have come here in a million years,” she admitted on reflection, “But I hold my hands up because that was really delicious.” And considering she eats offal for breakfast, that’s saying something.

Where were we? The Gardeners Arms in Jericho, a tiny pub hidden up Plantation Road and a much-overlooked jewel in Oxford’s drinking crown.

It boasts ‘Oxford’s premier vegetarian and vegan cuisine’ but also fools people all the time. Because let’s face it, vegetarian food gets pretty bad press and vegetarians get pretty short shrift; goat’s cheese, risotto or pasta being the token gesture on most decent restaurants’ menus.

The chef, who ambled over for a chat after our meal, revels in pushing the boundaries at the The Gardeners Arms. He’d had a party in last week who ordered the mexican platter, which includes a chilli enchilada.

“The woman said it was very nice, but did we do a vegetarian one because she was bringing a friend in later that week,” he smiles.

That’s not to say everything tastes of that awful vegetarian mince, soya or Quorn. The food tastes good because all the flavours and textures are so well balanced you don’t notice the meat is missing. And it’s all home-made and bursting with flavour.

The burger came with its own menu so that you can pick and choose your fillings, sauces and extras. Our quarter pounder came with lettuce, pickles, gherkins, garlic mayo and burger relish with extra Emmental cheese, in a basket with fries, and all for £7.50.

We accompanied it with the spinach and feta cheese puff pastry tart – served on a bed of crushed lemon, with new potatoes with watercress salad in a basil oil and balsamic dressing, for £9.95. The delightful pungent pastry square and its delicious fragrant filling served on an interesting triangular black plate, was declared “really tasty”.

We then also sampled one of the flat bread calzones, the pizza base being thin, crispy and utterly divine. The filling – spinach, tomato, olives and feta – was rather wholesome for me, but you can have more standard variations such as tomato, basil and mozzarella, served with salad or fries and all for £8.95. I don’t know if they served dessert. It wasn’t on the menu and we were stuffed by then.

So what’s not to like? Well although the food is a find, the pub needs a bit of TLC. The bar is a wee, old-fashioned set-up, and you can imagine roaring fires in the winter. But the garden, which could be fantastic, had definitely seen better days. The weeds were as high as our table, all the garden furniture was cracked and peeling and the Buddleia hanging over our food was so low we had to move. A lick of paint and a gardener would do it the world of good.

As for the food, I aim to take all my most ardent carnivorous friends there. I love a challenge and The Gardener’s Arms is a corner worth fighting. We loved it.

* The Gardeners Arms, Plantation Road, Oxford.

OX26JE.

01865 559814.

thegarden-oxford.co.uk