Worton Kitchen Garden — Restaurant in West Oxfordshire

What a unique and wonderful sensory experience, a hidden gem! Fabulous garden, fresh 3 course late lunch for two on Friday 2nd August. The passion and love for their ingredients was self evident but to be clear this place is big on “character” and “slow food”, the antithesis of modern chain restaurants and more authentic and in stark contrast to the more formulaic and manicured “farmshop/garden centre” restaurants typical of the area. It’s like eating in someone’s private kitchen garden or giant allotment. Talk about field to plate provenance, ingredients don’t get fresher than this!

We were fortunate to visit on a warm summer afternoon and our table for two, shaded by parasol and fruit trees, was alfresco rambling kitchen garden summer perfection. Other tables for 2, 4 and 6 are spaced so far apart around the restaurant sheds and out into the abundant gardens that we didn’t notice half of them until we explored later. For seating at other times of year there appeared to be rustic tables in two parts of the shed and one high ceilinged greenhouse.

The menu is short and, as advertised, seasonal. To start we shared decadent pork crackling with a mirabelle chutney and beautifully sweet tomatoes in a caprese-like salad. For our mains we chose the house mezze - principally homemade babaganoush (fabulous), hummus, tomatillo salad with crusty white house-baked ciabatta-style bread - and then whole mackerel (bbq chard) and beetroot. It was a crime not to try more than one of the three fabulous looking puddings - something chocolate, an amazing sounding cheesecake and a mixed fruit frangipane. We had the latter - a taste sensation.

We made the most of the suggestion to explore the gardens and there appeared to be no limitations to this. There are a number of huge greenhouses bursting with tomato plants, vines and other veg. These are interspersed with combined vegetable and flower beds and fruit trees. We found chickens, geese and turkeys but must have missed the pigs. On our way we came across friendly gardeners and Stacey Gledhill, the artist in residence for the summer. To be clear these are not manicured gardens, they are beautifully wild and at this time of year watering and harvesting might understandably take priority over weeding or meticulous tidying up.

Since our visit I’ve read back through reviews on the usual platforms and have noticed occasionally severe criticism of this establishment when it comes to service, speed of service and pricing. We have no such complaints but it is possible to imagine how they might occasionally arise. Staff are surely not drilled to corporate style rulebooks; some tables are hidden and further from the hub; for this quality, prices are understandably at the high-end of gastropub levels; and this is a working kitchen garden.

In the end it’s a matter of taste, preferences and expectations. For us this was genuinely a five star / exceeded expectations experience in...

Do not waste your time or money. Never have I ever been so disappointed by a restaurant experience.

It took an hour to have our drinks order taken and then a further half an hour for them to turn up. By this point we were starving and would have left had we not ordered food with our drinks. We received one starter a good twenty minutes before the rest and a duck salad was entirely forgotten about. During this time we watched another table decide to clear their plates themselves and take them inside as they'd been completely forgotten about. We debated complaining at this point, but the waitresses could clearly see we were not happy and seemed to just want to avoid us. I didn't fancy the confrontation only to be given a bowl of olives and bread to make up for it (as the self-servers were gifted). Our mains arrived two hours after we were seated and added further insult to injury. Not once were we asked if we would like more drinks or how we were doing and the food was served in such a way that all four of us ate practically individually, one at a time.

The 'mezze' main consisted of one piece of bread/pitta, three roasted garlic bulbs, a pot of babaganoush and a pot of tabbouleh. Even if it had been a starter it would have been disappointing. It felt as if they'd run out of bread and you were left to eat the mediocre babaganoush by the spoonful. I have no idea what you were meant to do with three whole garlics - even as someone who loves roasted garlic, it felt like a strange add on. Absolutely ridiculous when contrasted with the meat options.

The same can be said of the nasu dengaku - the aubergine was fine but it was simply three (half) baby aubergines on a bed of plain rice. Pretty underwhelming and tasteless.

All of this was topped off by the fact that the head chef? was perusing the gardens sloshing a glass of wine around and talking to tables for most of the afternoon. At the beginning of the meal I thought this was quite charming and a lovely relaxed, personal atmosphere. However, on having to go up to the kitchen to try and pay it became clear he was doing more drinking than anything else as an empty wine bottle was sat proudly on the table.

As someone who has worked in hospitality I was mortified that this restaurant is even allowed to open. The environment (which is the only redeeming factor) is cheapened by the overpriced and frankly appalling attempt at a upper market restaurant.

I would suggest just going for a drink to enjoy the garden but you'd have to be up for an hour and a half wait for a single sip. I can't over-emphasise how willing I am to let one or two things slip if the overall experience is 'good enough' but Worton Kitchen Garden couldn't even...

LIFE IS A MIRACLE. The words comes into focus as you approach Worton Kitchen Garden through an exuberant thicket of iridescent artichoke blossoms, rambling roses, rustling seed pods, deep purple plums, and plants in uncountable variety. Worton's extraordinary magic is conjured in this environment saturated with meaning, saturated with life. The miracle isn't your life — at least not specifically. The miracle is what happens between soil and sky, tended with a loving touch: fruits and vegetables with depth of flavour, fowl roaming free to feast on garden pests, blossoms competing for sunlight. And tables where you can slowly take all of this in, not by images on a screen, but by the smells and sounds and, most importantly, the flavours that emerge from the soil beneath your feet.

Worton is, in every sense, the opposite of the corporate-chef-chain-restaurants that crowd high streets like weeds. It is not optimised to deliver a uniform experience at the lowest possible cost. It is not the embodiment of a marketing strategy. It is a celebration of life in the arc of its seasons, of English countryside ecology, and of food traditions that enhance the glory of the ingredients.

Worton's visionary, Simon Spence, knows that its poetry is only partly in his control. With his daughters and a loyal team of agriculturalists he gently shapes it, while as much as possible leaving its miracles to take form all around. Simon's genius is, happily, between the kitchen and your table. He draws on a life of (culinary) adventures to transport you from his farm across geography and culture, or simply to give you a taste of the here and now. And he tells his stories with similar effect.

If you have kids, bring them. Let them explore and play. Visit the pigs and throw them windfall fruit. Taste the happy farm lives of the animals. Try the homemade ice creams and sorbets. Don't be in a rush (the staff aren't). Let your surroundings saturate you before you leave. Be reminded that life is...