ACMMPC: Local Information
This page contains local information of interest to the participants in the
Mathfit Summer School on Algebraic and Coalgebraic
Methods in the Mathematics of Program Construction. The following
information is provided:
The following restaurants are all within walking distance of the
college. (The comments are partly personal, partly blatently copied from
restaurant guides on the web.)
- Chutney's Indian Brasserie, 36 St Michaels Street, 01865 724241
- Shemon's Indian Cuisine, 135 High St, 01865 242062
- Shimla Pinks, 16 Turl Street, 01865 244944
(Indian)
- Bath
Place Hotel, Holywell Street, 01865 791812
(``A first class award winning restaurant open to non-residents: rated in
the Michelin Guide, Good Food Guide and Egon Ronay.'')
- Ask, 5 George St, 01865 726850
(Italian)
- Browns,
5-11 Woodstock Rd, 01865 319600
(``Bustling, busy, noisy for young and old;''
no advance booking.)
- Elizabeth Restaurant, 82 St Aldates 01865 242230
(``Top class restaurant'', French cuisine.)
- Fishers, 36 & 37 St Clements, 01865 243003
(``Oxford's only seafood and fish restaurant'')
- Gee's Brasserie, 61a Banbury Road, 01865 553540
(``Housed in a former Victorian conservatory.'')
- Ma Belle, Wheatsheaf Yard (off High Street), 01865 722473
(``French cooking, bring your own wine.'')
- The Nosebag, 6 St Michael's St, 01865 721033
(``Self service restaurant with much vegetarian choice, open late'')
- Le Petit Blanc, 71-72 Walton Street, 01865 510999
(``Raymond Blanc's popular venture into the centre of Oxford.'')
- Pierre Victoire, 9 Little Clarendon Street, 01865 316616
(``Going more for the rustic than the sophisticated ambience, the range and
quality of food at PVs is second to none. The menu changes daily and the
laid back atmosphere and £8.90 three course lunch make this an excellent
venue on Sunday afternoon. Try the Moule Meunière for starters -
magnifique!'')
- Quod Bar and Grill, 92-94 High Street, 01865 202505
(``New large venue under the Old Bank Hotel.'')
- The Bangkok House, 42a Hythe Street, 01865 200705
(``With beautifully carved Thai tables and chairs, staff dressed in
traditional Thai costume and an extensive and authentic Thai menu, a night
at the Bangkok House is guaranteed to be one to remember! The ambiance is
truly superb and the quality of the food is excellent. Booking several days
in advance is recommended.'')
- Old Orleans, George Street, 01865 792718
(Tex-mex)
- Pizza Express, Golden Cross, Cornmarket St, 01865 790442
- The Gourmet Pizza Company, 100-101 Gloucester Green, 01865 793146
- Friends, 4 Woodstock Road, 01865 554996
(Chinese)
- Mongolian Wok Bar, 67-69 George Street, 01865 792919
(Choose your own ingredients and watch the chef barbeque them on the
spot. Cheap and fun.)
- Bandung, 124 Walton Street, 01865 511668
(Indonesian and Malaysian)
- Al-Shami, Walton Crescent, 01865 310066
(``Quiet lunches, busy evenings, popular Lebanese restaurant.'')
- Café Rouge, 11 Little Clarendon Street, 01865 310194
(``The Scholar's pick of the restaurants in Little Trendy Street is the
cafe bar `Café Rouge'. This restaurant is part of a growing chain, but you
wouldn't think so from the superb food and polished and attentive
service. Gently pretentious, the waiting staff will react with feigned
surprise and consternation if you order `green beans' instead of `haricot
verts'. But the atmosphere is lively and there is a good cocktails bar at
the front in which to take your apéritif. Booking at weekends is
recommended.'')
- La Luna Caprese, 4 North Parade, 01865 554812
(``A small, intimate, family run restaurant. Sea food is the speciality
and there is decor to match! There is an extensive `a la carte' Italian
menu and a good selection of desserts. The seductive `specials' menu is
delivered verbally by the waiter at your table - they are pricey, but the
quality is excellent. It is best to book in advance, especially at
weekends.'')
- Chiang Mai, 130a High Street, 01865 202233
(Thai)
- Thai Orchid, 58a St Clements, 01865 798044
- The chip shop next to Carfax on the High (``At the commercial centre
of town, and discretely set back along a short alleyway, you can smell your
way to this plaice place.'')
A little further afield:
- Jamaican Hi-Lo Eating House, 68 Cowley Road, 01865 240159
(Definitely characterful, but only for the bold.)
- Aziz Indian Cuisine, 228 to 230 Cowley Road, 01865 794945
(Excellent South Indian food. There are many other Indian restaurants to
choose from up Cowley Road.)
- The Lemon Tree, 268 Woodstock Road, 01865 311936
(``Spacious ambience'')
- Saffron, Banbury Road
(Indian and French cuisine.)
And if you have money to burn:
-
Le Manoir aux Quat'
Saisons: In the Manor House at Great Milton a few miles outside
Oxford.
Raymond Blanc's top-notch restaurant: probably the best in the
country. For ultimate kudos, arrive by helicopter on the private
heli-pad... The attention to detail is incredible and you can finish up
with handmade petits fours. If you go for lunch, you can have an amble
around the grounds afterwards (where many of the vegetables are grown) or
have a leisurely game of croquet if the weather is good.
A small selection:
- The Bear, Alfred St.
(``Reputedly Oxford's smallest pub dating back to 1242.''
``The owner collects ties and displays them on the walls. A new tie will
win you a drink in exchange.'')
- The Turl Bar, Turl Street.
(``Jazz on Mondays, but safe the rest of the week. Many tiny little bars in
a maze of a building.'')
- Eagle and Child, St Giles.
(``An inn since 1650. Famous for meetings of the Inklings: J R R Tolkien, C S Lewis, Dorothy Parker and co.'')
- The King's Arms, Holywell St.
(``For generations a meeting place for students, situated near the Bodleian
Library and the Sheldonian Theatre.'')
- Turf Tavern, Bath
Place off Holywell St.
(``Immortalised in Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure.'')
- White
Horse, Broad Street.
(``One of Inspector Morse's favoured haunts, next to Blackwells.'')
If you fancy a nice walk along the river one evening, try one of these:
- The Perch, Binsey.
(``Thatched pub with gardens to the Thames; a pleasant walk from Oxford
across Port Meadow.'')
- The Trout Inn, Wolvercote.
(``Fine old inn on the Thames at Godstow originally built in 1133.'')
Lloyds and HSBC both have branches around the corner at Carfax.
Thomas Cook, containing the American Express office, is nearby at the
Carfax end of Queen Street.
For the impoverished, the cheapest way to eat will be via the Sainsbury's
supermarket in the Westgate Shopping Centre at the west
end of Queen
St. Supplement that with visits to the Covered Market for
fruit and vegetables, bakeries and delicatessans and you cannot go far
wrong. Oddbins the wine merchant's is just across High
Street.
Boots the Chemist's have a large store on Cornmarket, as do
W H Smith the newsagent's; for more
business-like stationery, Ryman's on High Street is a better bet.
The world famous Blackwell's
Bookshop is just around the corner on Broad
Street. (There are actually four branches with different specialties; the main
branch is at the northeast corner of Broad street, next to the White Horse
pub.) Oxford has many antiquarian and secondhand bookshops too.
If you want to buy souvenirs, the Bodleian Library has a gift shop in the
old Bodleian Quad, accessible via the Clarendon Building across the road
from Blackwell's main branch. Another good place is attached to the Oxford
Story `multimedia experience'; you can enter the shop without having to
partake of the experience by the back entrance off Ship Street, which runs
between Turl Street and Cornmarket.
Here is a map of the centre of Oxford:
Other places may be found via multimap.com, searching by grid reference
or postcode; for example, here is the
college.
More Information
See the very comprehensive web
site set up by Jonathan Bowen.
Jeremy
Gibbons, March 2000.