Pompette Review: Oxford's Favourite Restaurant, and Ours Too

The wine

We always start the same way: a bottle of the Pompette Bordeaux Clairet. It's become our ritual and genuinely one of the best rosés we've come across — that deep, ruby-tinged Bordeaux style that sits somewhere between a proper red and a classic pale rosé. It drinks beautifully with almost everything on the menu and sets exactly the right tone for the meal ahead. If you haven't tried it, it should be your first order.

Our most recent visit was, as ever, a reminder of why we keep coming back.

Greek-inspired creamed spinach & feta dip with pistachio, dill & filo crisps

A beautiful way to open. The dip is rich and savoury, the pistachio and dill lift it somewhere brighter and more interesting, and the filo crisps give it a lightness and crunch that stops the whole thing feeling heavy. Exactly the kind of starter that looks simple and isn't.

Chalk stream trout tartare with lovage, cucumber, Granny Smith apple & crème fraîche

This was immaculate. The trout is delicate and clean, the apple adds a sharp, refreshing contrast, and the lovage brings an herbal depth you don't often encounter. Crème fraîche ties it together without overwhelming. One of those dishes where every element earns its place.

Sautéed lamb sweetbreads with peas, broad beans & gem lettuce in a rosemary anchovy dressing

This is the dish for people who want to understand what Pompette is really about. Sweetbreads are unforgiving — overcook them and they're lost — but these were perfectly sautéed, tender and yielding with a lovely golden exterior. The rosemary anchovy dressing brought a saline, umami depth that made the whole plate sing. Outstanding.

Imam bayildi — aubergine stuffed with a gently spiced tomato sauce, pine nuts & raisins, with tahini dressing & herb salad

The vegetarian option and not an afterthought in the slightest. The aubergine was silky and giving, the filling gently sweet and warmly spiced, the tahini dressing grounding the whole dish with its earthy creaminess. This is the kind of cooking that makes you forget entirely that there's no meat on the plate.

English strawberries with clotted cream & elderflower meringue

Summer on a plate. The strawberries were properly ripe and flavourful — the kind you only get for a few weeks — and the elderflower meringue was delicate, floral, and just sweet enough. Clotted cream is rarely a wrong choice. It was not a wrong choice here.

Canelés de Bordeaux with salted rum caramel

The perfect ending. Canelés are notoriously tricky to pull off — that lacquered, deeply caramelised shell with the soft, custardy interior — and these were as good as any we've had. The salted rum caramel alongside was rich without being cloying. A small thing done brilliantly, which is rather the point of Pompette.

The one that got away (for now)

Our all-time favourite dish from Pompette was the boudin noir en brioche, which appeared as a starter earlier this year in February. If you know boudin noir, you'll know the potential — that rich, deeply savoury black pudding in a buttery brioche is exactly the kind of thing that makes you close your eyes for a moment. We are watching the menu closely and waiting patiently for its return.

The hosts

A restaurant is always more than its food, and at Pompette the whole experience is elevated by the people running it. The hosts are genuinely exceptional — warm and attentive without hovering, and remarkably knowledgeable about both the food and the drinks. You never feel like you're asking too much when you want to know more about a dish or a wine. They make every visit feel like a personal welcome rather than a table turning.

The offers — worth knowing about

Pompette runs some genuinely good weekday evening offers that are worth knowing about if you're a regular or planning your first visit. Tuesdays bring sausage frites — Toulouse or Merguez with frites, sauces, and a drink — at £20 per person. Wednesdays are poulet night: half roast chicken with tarragon jus, frites, and a carafe of house wine at £48 for two. Thursdays offer a onglet steak with frites and a glass of house wine at £28 per person. A vegetarian double-baked cheese soufflé option runs across all three nights at £24.

There's also a Prix Fixe menu available at lunch and early evening (Tuesday to Friday, 5:30–6:30pm) — three courses at £32, pulling from the à la carte selection. For the quality involved, it's remarkable value.