Brothertons Brasserie, Woodstock

Tripe pizza was a first even for me, and a last I might add.

We could smell it even before it emerged out of the kitchen, like a reheated corpse wafting through the restaurant.

On being placed in front of Mr Greedy, he actually gagged, the odour as repellent as the huge grey slices of tripe sausage placed in front of him.

Serves you right for ordering it in the first place, I hear you cry.

Fair point but as we were in France there were certain language barriers to overcome and secondly, we had asked about the house special and they’d said it contained local sausage which we took to mean the tight, trussed-up, salamis we’d bought in the local market.

We made the kids try it for a dare and they were soon retching into their napkins, and yes we learned our lesson, don’t eat pizza in France, so we stuck to what they do best instead, gorging ourselves on cheese and patés, baguettes, and of course vats of wine, from the safety of our gite.

On our long car journey home, the kids then created a new game to pass the time – what was the worst meal they’ve ever had (not hard to guess the outcome of that one) followed by where they’d like to eat if they were about to die, their bizarre variation on a Death Row supper.

Once shouts of Le Manoir had died down from the enormously unrealistic teenagers at the back – there was only one other contestant left, Brothertons in Woodstock where we take the kids on a regular basis for the fabulous pizzas and pasta.

It did mean, however, that we returned home starving and salivating.

So before we unpacked, and to prolong the holiday euphoria as long as possible, we ended on a high by turning up panting at the door of Brothertons before it had even opened, although within 10 minutes of arriving, the place was heaving.

It’s not a particularly smart or trendy place, fairly unassuming actually with its little wooden tables and wobbly chairs, its gas lighting and cramped toilets, but we love it there, to the extent that the menus placed at our tables were fairly redundant because we already knew exactly what we wanted – pizzas all round, except for one teenage son, who I think had been put off for life, and a daughter who will only eat their spaghetti bolognese.

The family-run restaurant, where mamma cooks and pappa runs the front-of-house, is always friendly and our kids were soon reading the children’s books stacked on a table by the door, while we waited for the dustbin lid thin pizzas to finally emerge.

And it was worth the wait, because they didn’t disappoint, arriving still floury around the edges, but thin, crusty, juicy, and crucially without too many ingredients to weigh it all down and make it soggy.

My daughter, who refuses to entertain the children’s pizza, wanted a whole grown-up Margherita (fresh vine tomatoes and basil £8.95) all to herself, and got stuck in while we opted for the Pizza Salami with red onion, garlic and basil oil (£9.95).

The children’s £5.95 bolognese pasta is a generous portion that always disappears in an indecent amount of time, and the homemade beef lasagna served with chips and salad (£11.95) followed simultaneously.

Knowing the routine, as soon as our entourage had wiped the last smear of tomato sauce from their faces, they had scampered over to the Mövenpick ice cream counter, only the best, opting for the usual caramelita and a small deviation with the superb new panna cotta flavour, until we bounded out into the sunlight again, having managed to fend off the inevitable holiday blues for a few more hours and all without a whiff of tripe in sight.

Brothertons Brasserie
1 High Street,
Woodstock
01993 811114
brothertonsbrasserie.co.uk

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