Cherwell Boathouse

An Oxford institution, this. No one fails to warm to the well-run restaurant & bar combo occupying one half of a working boathouse, with wide windows overlooking the Cherwell. If you can take your eyes off the punts, pick your way through a short but fresh modern menu with British & French influences – warm salad of black pudding, quails' eggs & bacon lardons, oven-roasted fillet of Hereford Cross beef with hand-cut chips, red onion marmalade & morel sauce, & Champagne rhubarb & custard jelly with stem ginger ice cream, for example. Owned by Anthony Verdin (half of London wine merchants Morris & Verdin), the Boathouse boasts a magnificent list of wines to complement the cooking.

Wine List Of The Year

With a fine wine list built up over decades and mark-ups of little more than 50%, last year’s Fine Wine List of the Year winner breezed onto the shortlist again.