Review - The Fishes, North Hinksey

Mr Greedy was in his element. Gone were the deep furrows in his forehead caused by children’s bedtime, squabbles, homework, packed lunches and missing school uniform.

The shoulders relaxed, the eyes lit up, the edges of the mouth began to curve upwards. He was back in the room.

“This is my ideal menu. It’s everything I want to eat. I could have almost everything on it,” he adds, beginning to salivate.

We were at The Fishes in North Hinksey, drawn like cod to a line, to try the Dip Your Own Asparagus with a hollandaise sauce and an egg and parmesan dip.

It had been years since we’d eaten there, having pretty much stopped going. Our last few meals hadn’t been a success and we felt that standards had slipped, waiting times lengthened, service got a bit sloppy.

It had become a victim of its own success in many ways, almost unable to keep up with the tide of people who ambushed it on a regular basis.

But our dinner served to demonstrate that it has climbed back on to its pedestal, and is once again producing some really fine food.

The French chef Mathias Rouvery powering away in the kitchen was one of the reasons, and new deputy manager Sam Terry, another.

The asparagus (£6.75) meant that the starters were taken care of. It was a wise choice. They were delicious, served with fake grass, and three flowerpots; the first with hollandaise, then the generous supply of asparagus spears, and lastly the chopped egg mix, like a Sherbet Dip Dab.

Perfectly cooked, they were worth waiting for.

But it was the rest of the meal that was the biggest surprise.

Mr Greedy, after much umming and ahing sighed and ordered the bavette steak (£17) on the specials menu, as if disappointed with his own predictability. It came with all the trimmings and a lovely pepper sauce, although the chips were slightly undercooked.

I, being his greedy wife by name and nature, then ordered several more starters, the kedgeree with poached egg (£7.50) and the salt baked beetroot, Pont-l'Evêque cheese and tarragon salad with toasted walnuts (£6.50). The smoked haddock was cooked absolutely perfectly, the generous, plump flakes falling off the knife. It was a gift of a dish with tiny battered onion rings giving it a crunch on top, the peas and peashoots offsetting the rice with a lightness of flavour.

I wasn’t sure that the Pont-l'Évêque Cheese in the beetroot salad was the right choice. Something softer and saltier would have been better. Neither would you have known the beetroot had been salt baked, but it was still a very amenable dish.

Full to the brim we toyed with an apple caramel, (a take on a crème caramel), with blackberry coulis and shortbread biscuits (£5.75).

And as Sam came to ask how our meal had gone, Mr Greedy replied that he would need to return extremely soon to try the Brixham crab hollandaise, the breaded smoked sardines, the free-range chicken with potato rösti, wilted spinach and morel mushroom cream, the wild garlic and potato soup and so on.

And as we looked around at the crowds of different people, some in the beautiful riverside garden, the young huddled outside, families eating in the pub, couples relaxing in the restaurant, taste and comfort evident throughout, I was reminded how important it is to frequent Oxford’s classics, although with Mr Greedy now champing at the bit I don’t think it will be long before we’re back.

The Fishes, North Hinksey Village, Oxford
01865 249796 fishesoxford.co.uk