Eating in Oxford: Covered Market, Cowley Road and the Old Pubs

Oxford's food scene splits into three cities that happen to share a postcode. There is the visitor centre, where the white-tablecloth brasseries live. There is the market city, trading under one roof since the 1770s. And there is east Oxford, over Magdalen Bridge, where the students and locals eat and where the best cheap-to-mid cooking has quietly concentrated. Eat from all three and you have eaten Oxford; stay inside the first and you have eaten a hotel district.

Start under the market roof

The Covered Market, entered from Market Street, the High or Cornmarket, holds more than fifty independents: butchers, a fishmonger, florists, barbers, and a run of food counters covering pizza, Thai, sushi and Ethiopian cooking alongside the cafes. Two traders carry real history. The Oxford Cheese Company has stacked its counter at the Market Street end since 1983, strong on alpine rarities and British artisan cheeses, and is the first stop for a Port Meadow picnic; note it currently closes Monday and Tuesday. Ben's Cookies at units 108-109 is the original stall from 1984, the start of the whole international chain, still selling cookies warm by weight. Thursday to Saturday the market runs into the evening, to 10pm, with its bars carrying the late shift.

Cross the bridge for the good stuff

East Oxford is the eating quarter locals defend in arguments. Arbequina at 72-74 Cowley Road is the flagship: a small Spanish tapas bar with a long zinc counter, a short menu, and national-press cuttings (The Guardian called the tortilla perfect) that have not spoiled it. Its hours are limited, currently Thursday to Saturday, and the room is small, so book. Ten minutes south on Iffley Road, the Magdalen Arms has been the city's benchmark gastropub since 2009, run by people connected to London's Anchor & Hope, with a daily changing menu that moves from small plates to whole roasted joints for the table; closed Mondays. Around them, Cowley Road runs one of the better cheap-eats strips in southern England, from Lebanese to Nepalese, and rewards a browse.

The occasion end

When somebody graduates or gets engaged, Oxford books one of two rooms run by the same local group. Quod, inside the Old Bank on the High Street, is the all-day brasserie: European classics, an onyx bar, a garden terrace, and the useful property of serving food at hours when the rest of the centre has stopped. Gees, ten minutes up Banbury Road, is the pretty one: a Grade II listed Victorian glasshouse, built as a florist's conservatory, now serving seasonal Modern British cooking under glass. Out on the Cherwell in north Oxford, the Cherwell Boathouse has fed people at its punt station for over fifty years and keeps a wine list famous for being kinder than its setting entitles it to be; the punt-then-dinner double bill is the classic north Oxford evening.

Pubs with centuries on the clock

Oxford's old pubs are not themed; they are simply still here. The Turf Tavern, reached down an alley off New College Lane and dated by its operator to 1381, hides low rooms and walled yards under the old city wall, with braziers burning in winter; it takes no bookings from May to September, so go early or off-peak. The Bear on Alfred Street, with a claimed 13th-century lineage, is so small that tall drinkers stoop, and its walls carry thousands of framed tie clippings collected since the 1950s. And two of the best sit outside the city across Port Meadow: the thatched Perch at Binsey and the weir-side Trout at Wolvercote, both covered properly in our Port Meadow walking guide, both proof that the best Oxford meal sometimes starts with an hour on the Thames Path.

Three honest tips

Book everything that takes bookings on Friday and Saturday; this is a city of celebration dinners and the good rooms go. Lunch beats dinner for value at the occasion places, with set menus doing the heavy lifting. And if the budget is tight, the market counters at noon and a pub kitchen at night will feed you better here than the mid-range tourist restaurants on the main drags ever will.