Review: All thrills, no spills at travelling Giffords Circus restaurant

Perhaps it’s because, having just erupted from the Giffords Circus tent, massively inspired and excited about this summer’s Moon Songs show, aching with laughter, you’re in the right frame of mind.

Perhaps it’s that food tastes better eaten outside, that a locally foraged menu is more of a treat, or that sitting next to the musicians, circus performers, clowns, jugglers and horse trainers, filling up the travelling restaurant tent in the Blenheim Palace gardens with their laughter and chatter, is hard to beat, but either way Circus Sauce is utterly magical.

Drawn by the wonderful looking menu sketched up on blackboards outside, the beautifully laid wooden tables, the gentle lighting, Circus Sauce is a must.

What you don’t witness when you arrive in high spirits for the full Giffords experience is how hard Ollie Halas and his team have been working to prepare this amazing feast.

Not only do they have to start from scratch in this 60-seater restaurant every night, but unpack it, source the food, forage for what they can find in the local vicinity, haggle, beg, borrow and steal the ingredients, haul them back to the tiny kitchen all set within two magnificent showman’s wagons and then start preparing four courses for 60 covers with an ever changing menu, every night.

But by visiting local smallholdings, loyalty boxes, farms, fishmongers, butchers and greengrocers along the way, as well as regularly foraging for ingredients such as elderflowers, wild garlic and nettles in the fields and hedgerows of the surrounding areas, these ingredients then dictate the direction of dishes on the menu that evening.

No mean feat then considering the canvas awninged restaurant needs to be erected, dressed with its unmistakeably eclectic collection of vintage Giffords tapestries, grand communal candle-lit oak tables and a quirky mix of crockery and furniture. The washing up must be terrible!

And yet the kitchen crew make it look effortless and fun, the platters streaming out of the kitchen one after another, bearing down on the expectant guests with an inventive yet comforting menu, that makes you pledge to start hunting and gathering yourself a bit more when you get home. As if....

Run by its own brilliantly gifted and often hilarious culinary troupe, judging by the impromptu Punch & Judy-style food show conducted through the kitchen hatch halfway through the meal, the food began arriving almost as soon as we did – freshly baked bread washed down with our BYO rosé.

Sat on trestle tables, chatting to all and sundry, fairy lights glowing, Emma Bridgewater (Nell Gifford’s pottery-famous sister), in evidence around us, we sat back and soaked it all up.

The starters were pea and pancetta croquettes with gruyere, which came on a bed of mixed lettuce leaves, little hot, crispy balls with soft, steamy insides.

Next came trays piled high with kedgeree – generous portions of flaked smoked haddock, soft boiled duck eggs, (I wondered if they came from Blenheim Palace’s large collection of palace ducks) herbs and spring veg all mixed into the fragrant rice, which were passed up and down the tables until they’d vanished.

The hard-working Circus Sauce kitchen crew and impromptu showmen

I hadn’t realised that four courses meant we hadn’t even got to the mains yet until the pork arrived, falling off the bone and served with harissa roast vegetables and French bean and shallot salad, the meat having that lovely rich flavour that only comes from a long, slow roasting, which is so trendy now. The horse riders arrived late, no doubt putting their equine charges to bed, and got stuck in, with more than enough to go round.

After the impromptu kitchen show, which Nell thought was hilarious – the first time she’d seen it – the pudding was served, strawberry, elderflower and mint jelly served in glass tumblers with a freshly baked shortbread biscuit and whipped cream, which was so fresh and summery I savoured every mouthful.

Rosè drunk, tummies full, we paid the enormously good value £25 a head bill (£12.50 for kids) and went home. But that evening of fun, hilarity and seriously good food will stay with me for a long time, which is exactly how Giffords planned it.

So when you visit Giffords this summer – and I say when, because you must go, it’s absolutely brilliant – book dinner at the same time and I promise you won’t regret it.

The Giffords Circus travelling Circus Sauce restaurant is available at Giffords remaining Oxfordshire dates – Oxford’s University Parks, Kingham and Barrington. giffordscircus.com/resto
Open: After the 7.30pm circus show, at 9pm
Parking: On all sites
Make sure you try: The tea and cakes during the interval. I can vouch for the amazing brownies and carrot cake. Alternatively, try the pizza van with its wood-burning oven.
In 10 words: A life-affirming experience that you may well remember forever.