Dining Out 020: Wild Feasts at Oxmoor Farm
Lunch in the Chiltern Hills.
While London is probably my favourite place in the world, it is sometimes nice to temporarily escape, and so when I do get the chance to take Dining Out out of the city and onto the open road, I really enjoy it. Last Sunday, I had one such very fun opportunity, because I was invited to eat at Oxmoor Farm, which is in the Chiltern Hills. I figured you might like to hear about it, because if like me you are going to be hanging out in the city over the summer rather than holidaying (everyone posting from San Sebastian do not chat to me), you may also enjoy a little day-long escape to the country to eat some good food and drink quite a lot of wine in the sun.
I was invited to go along as part of the farm’s Wild Feasts series, wherein one weekend per month, a particular chef is invited to cook at the farm. Often this chef will be a bit of a known London quantity – last weekend it was the turn of Amber Francis, formerly of kitchens like Brat and The literal Ritz, plus 2023’s series of Great British Menu, while Tom Cenci of Yasmin and Nessa is up next.
The chef in question, whoever they are, works with the local produce – from lamb to nasturtium flowers – and serves their take on it to a barn full of guests. I don’t think there’s anyone in their right mind who wouldn’t want to be in said barn, especially on a 30 degree Sunday in August – so, as I am wont to do, I rounded up a friend named Hannah, and hit the trail (that is, the 1PM Chiltern Railways service from London Marylebone to High Wycombe).
Oxmoor Farm is about a 20 minute cab ride away from High Wycombe station, and High Wycombe station is about half an hour outside of London, so it’s easy to go there and back in a day. I am certainly a city person at heart – like, I like to be able to locate the nearest Aperol within ten minutes, and I did wear a two inch heel to this particular event, apparently oblivious to any concerns about the “farm” element of proceedings – but when we pulled into the venue, I was immediately really charmed.
The place is totally bucolic, the sort of thing that almost feels like a joke – picturesque wooden benches painted baby blue and flanked by lavender bushes, that type of craic – and as such, I can imagine that the place is a really popular wedding venue*. The barn itself is also painted a pretty blue colour inside, and the main feature of the room is three long tables that probably seat about 30 people each. This is where the meal, which was made up of just about everything I want to eat when the temperature gets above about 26 degrees, was served, for sharing.
As a starter, Amber and her team prepared a selection of dishes that I’d basically define as elevated picky bits. There were flatbreads smeared lovingly in salsa verde, with fat little quenelles of whipped herby butter too, thinly sliced heritage tomatoes, grilled peas and beans tumbled over homemade ricotta, plus a pickle plate to boot.
Like most people, since the weather has been better, I’ve been obsessively chomping on every plant I can get my hands on – tomatoes, they’re good again baby – so the selection of vegetables, prepared with such an expert touch, was so cool to experience. I liked the house-prepared ricotta with the verdant peas and beans (the grilling meant that those peas had a real bulk of flavour, too), though the thing that has stayed on my mind most of all has been the addictive sharpness of pickled fennel and the surprising tang of a slice of pickled honeydew melon. I was also lucky enough to be in the company of Hannah, a Big Wine Understander (subscribe to her Substack if you want to learn about wine in a non-annoying way, by the way), who picked out a white wine that was so unusually savoury – genuinely, when I smelled it I was “getting” basil and blue cheese – that it was absolute dynamite with all of the starters.
Next came what for me was the big highlight of the meal – hogget shoulder roasted in fermented honey [Gob Bluth “COME ON” voice], served over haricot beans, with a salad that looked like it had literally just been pulled up out of the garden, flowers and all, as well as marinated courgettes. It was just really, really good hot day food: the lamb pulled away with the slightest nudge of the fork and the honey gave it some pep, the beans brought a bit of comfort, the salad tasted fresh and dancingly floral, and the courgettes were an amazing example of what this vegetable can really do, flavour-wise, coaxed out by a slightly sweet marinade (and I’ll be honest, I do think the courgette is very misunderstood in her time. She is the Monica Lewinsky of the farmer’s market).
The dessert followed on in the botanical vein that defined the rest of the lunch (the lamb was the only non-vegetarian dish on the menu), but this time, instead of sharing, each individual person was presented with their own individual custard tart. Contained in a little pastry case, looking on the plate more like an ornament than something you might eat, the custard was flavoured intensely with local honey and topped with barbecued fruits. I don’t think I really have to describe to you how perfect that combination was, but if you’re curious, it tasted sort of like how it feels when the sun is at your shoulders and it’s about 6PM and you don’t have work the next day – sweet, light, good.
Altogether, it was a beautiful way to spend a Sunday. Sometimes I find myself tiring a little bit of London’s – and social media’s – restaurant trend cycle, so I loved having an experience that felt so dictated by the available ingredients and doing the absolute best by them. So if you’re also knocking around London this summer and you do fancy escaping, you should go down to the farm, and lose your absolute mind over courgettes, peaches, and salad leaves – it’s a really special thing to do.
* There would, I’m sure, be nowhere more lovely to have a row regarding deep-seated familial trauma with a cousin at 11:34PM.
This visit was kindly arranged by Caper Comms but the opinions expressed? Those are all mine baby.
Dining Out is written by Lauren O’Neill and illustrated by Lucy Letherland. Weekly reviews are free to read every Thursday, but if you’d like to see more, you can subscribe for £5 a month or £50 a year, to get extra content every second Sunday. This week it will be a roundup of all the excellent stuff I’ve eaten in the past fortnight, including a couple of brand new spots!
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