Oxford Restaurants & Cafes

Oxford's longest-running Lebanese restaurant — three decades of mezze on a quiet Jericho crescent.

Authentic Italian gelato in the Covered Market.

Entirely plant-based street food — bold flavours drawn from global traditions.

Cocktails and pizza on the Cowley Road — a good-time bar that takes both seriously enough.

Jericho's Italian anchor — reliable pizza, proper cocktails, and a terrace that makes you forget you're in England.

Specialty coffee and pour-overs on Banbury Road — Oxford's serious coffee destination since 2013.

Specialty coffee in a medieval courtyard.

Social enterprise cafe and co-working space in Jericho.

Tiny, no-frills Japanese canteen on Holywell Street — ramen, donburi, gyoza, and bento boxes.

Oxford's own ice cream since 1992 — handmade, inventive, and open past midnight.

Seasonal British cooking in a Victorian glasshouse — an unusual and distinctive dining room.

Independent coffee from a horsebox outside the Natural History Museum.

Ethically sourced, Oxford-roasted specialty coffee — direct-trade beans with full traceability.

Moorish-style tapas bar on the Cowley Road — lanterns, cocktails, and sharing plates.

Rooftop cocktails with a view of the Bodleian spires — Oxford's closest thing to a sky bar.

Well-regarded Thai food in a tiny room with a BYOB policy — no corkage, no fuss.

Fine dining on the Banbury Road — tasting menus with ambition and precision.

Old-school French bistro on Little Clarendon Street — steak frites, carafes of wine, and no apologies.

Grand brasserie in the Old Bank Hotel — High Street people-watching with a menu that covers all bases.

No-frills Thai cooking on the Cowley Road — big flavours, tiny prices, zero pretension.

Cantonese dim sum and Chinese cooking on St Aldates — popular with Oxford's Chinese students.

Specialty coffee done with warmth and precision — pour-over and filter in central Oxford.

Proper Caribbean food on the Cowley Road — jerk chicken with soul, plantain with crunch, and rice and peas done right.

Sri Lankan street food tapas — fiery, fragrant, and well priced.

Bike-themed cafe-bar on St Michael's Street — good coffee by day, cocktails by night.

A serious kitchen in a proper pub — nose-to-tail cooking, popular Sunday roasts, and not a gastro cliche in sight.

Oxford's original specialty coffee shop — own-roasted beans on Turl Street.

Indian street food and cocktails on Hythe Bridge Street — chaat, grills, thalis, and a full bar.

Coffee and vinyl on the Cowley Road — browse records with a flat white in hand.

A social enterprise restaurant on Turl Street — closed in May 2025. Oxford Hub has relocated to Little Clarendon Street.

A beloved Oxford cafe that relocated from its famous Radcliffe Square crypt to King Edward Street in late 2025.

Chinese-Malaysian cooking in Jericho — refined flavours, a proper wine list, and neighbourhood atmosphere.