When I visited: March 2017

Location: Oxford (city centre)

Rating in the Michelin Guide: Recommended

Dining Owl Hoot rating: 3/5

What to wear: Men – jeans or nice trousers and a shirt; women – jeans and a smart top or a smart dress

Ambience: Smart/casual, buzzy

Course of the meal: Salmon fishcakes

If I could change one thing: Better staff to guests ratio

Review:

Oxford has tons of popular chain restaurants but occasionally it’s nice to go somewhere a bit different. Quod has a good atmosphere and a good range of food on its menu, including pizzas, Indian and English dishes.

I visited with a group and between us we had a ‘half and half’ pizza (mushrooms and spicy sausage), lamb bhuna (not bad but the lamb itself was slightly chewy and the poppadum needed to be crispier) and salmon fishcakes with spinach and butter sauce (delicious). We shared a carafe of Malbec to wash all this down.

We also enjoyed desserts (chocolate bread and butter pudding, swapping in the ice cream for cognac custard) and blackberry cheesecake) as well as green teas and coffees and espresso.

The whole meal was solid if not amazing, and the service was friendly, but this restaurant suffered (like so many do) from a tough staff to guest ratio that meant the staff were run off their feet and the guests were left waiting too long for water and food. This is a particular problem for guests who are going to the theatre or cinema afterwards, and it isn’t the fault of the hard-working waiting staff – it needs to be looked at at a management level.