Hart Street Tavern — Restaurant in South Oxfordshire

Food mostly good-to-very tasty but limited in choice. Alcohol (see: wine) on the expensive side. Service could be better but wait for food was short and staff were friendly. Nicely atmospheric, with live music most nights (with healthy turnover of musicians and subsequent variation in volume, make sure to sit at a distance to enjoy as ambience rather than as main attraction).

We ordered starters and mains. I had the welsh rarebit starter and fish and chips main, my dinner companion the oysters and fish & c again.

Food: mostly good. My choices were great, I enjoyed the flavour of the rarebit - delicious cheese on soft yet substantive base and salty meat. Chips were thick cut and dense with a crisp bite, and the fish wrapped in a rich flavoursome ale batter. The only reservation were small oysters. Choice wasn't bad but, compared to wine below, limited in variety or quantity of choice. The food may be tasty but the options appear to play safe, rather than stamping a distinction on the town.

Wine was expensive. The choice was fantastic, it would have been difficult to not find 2 or 3 wines for any pairing and a well-populated list allowed for interesting exploration beyond the comfort zone of the typical cellars of Henley. The wines were, however, expensive, marked up well beyond a reasonable multiplier for waiter-served wine.

Service. We were late to eat on a Sunday evening, so perhaps this could be excusable: staff were slow to take orders or provide the bill. Food was quick to come when ordered, and staff were friendly.

3/5: The Tavern comes across as distinctly gastro with limited food choice, expansive and expensive alcohol range, and sit down service. It lacks charasmatic offerings but does mainline...

Myself and three other guests visited this establishment on 15th September, I can assure you, this will be the last visit we make to this extremely poor restaurant.

The waitress was rude, made us feel unwelcome and in her way, this is after a 20 minutes waiting for a drink order to be taken.

we Ordering two baked camembert, one arrived after an hour of waiting, the second one 15 minutes later, hard and cold in the middle, not baked at all! The 'Manager' took it away and we asked for it to be cooked, half an hour later we still had not received the order back! I complained to the 'Manager' who was the rudest hospitality worker I have ever had the misfortune of meeting, said we told him we did not want it any more! He obviously didn't listen to what we said and when we stated we had been waiting for an hour and a half, he said 'well that's your opinion'.

This armature manager (possible co-owner) has no idea how to manage and run a successful restaurant. I would give this place a wide berth if I was you, disgraceful service and what food was received was uncooked and underwhelming.

Side note, the owners details we asked for were incorrect, obviously ashamed of his...

Our Sunday lunch started well with enjoyable starters (prawn cocktail, smoked salmon) promptly and cheerfully served. But…we then had to wait over an hour for our main courses. Given that we were with a small child, this was way too long and even if we had not been with a child, it was still unacceptable.

When we eventually asked, we were told that the kitchen was busy serving a table of 14 and that we would have to wait until that was completed. Another fifteen minutes went by and we asked again, this time being told that the food would come in five minutes. Fifteen minutes later it arrived. At no time did any of the waiting staff proactively warn us that our food was delayed, no offer was made to give us eg, free drinks to compensate and the bill came with the service charge added. There was no apology. Why the manager did not come to explain and apologise is quite beyond me.

As for the quality of the mains, a mixed report. The burger was overcooked but the chicken burger was quite enjoyable as was the pizza.

This was all a great shame as the place had real promise and the space was warm...