The Bakehouse

Banbury Road, Summertown Tel: 557363

This lively café in Summertown is a real gem in the middle of North Oxford. Always packed, the place combines country coffee-shop style fodder with a buzzing continental atmosphere, and the alluring smell of freshly baked bread can't fail to draw passers-by into its warm interior.

After a steaming café latté, I choose the feta salad. To digress, it must be said that the choice of a salad here is somewhat arbitrary, as everything from the burgers to the toasted sandwiches is served with a huge, and I mean huge, portion of fresh, interesting salad, the match of which you'll be hard pressed to find anywhere else in Oxford. Thus my feta salad arrives - adorned with boulder-like chunks of crumbly feta cheese, as well as plump purple olives, ripe tomatoes and other colourful salad vegetables, this salad is of gargantuan proportions. Indeed, if ever you have had doubts as to the mealworthy status of The Salad, then the sight of this thing will be sure to dispel them. A pleasant and not overpowering vinaigrette completes the dish.

He has the dolma platter, one of the many sumptuous sounding Lebanese choices on the menu. A very large plate arrives, with, yes, a gorgeous olive-scattered salad, and six plump and glistening stuffed vine leaves surrounded by various dips and relishes. He digs in with relish, and for a salad-hating six-foot man, appears to enjoy this salad-à-la-Bakehouse.... Furthermore, as we tuck in I am presented with a bowl of warm french bread, while he has a similar bowl of warm pittas. We were, like the vine leaves, stuffed.

So stuffed, indeed, that we cannot manage a dessert. However, having been here many times before, I can speak from experience of the simply amazing range of cakes and pastries on offer from the bakery side of the café. With everything from decadent chocolate brownies to buttery croissants and sticky honey baclava, a coffee and cake break is definitely the thing to do on a drizzly Sunday afternoon.

As for our lunch bill - at under £13 this place offers extraordinary value for money, for portions worth double the price. And don't let the location put you off - Summertown is not that far, honest....

Jane Labous 15/02/2000