A COUPLE are celebrating their first year at a once failing boozer they have turned into an acclaimed gastro-pub.

Florence Fowler and Tony Abarno took over the Magdalen Arms in Iffley Road, East Oxford, last October.

Former landlord Ben Scholes had complained of “dwindling” trade and the pub was on the market for 18 months.

The couple spent £60,000 on a makeover which included trebling the size of its kitchen to serve up dishes including roast wood pigeon and mussels in crab broth.

They created the gastro-pub’s trademark ‘shabby chic’ look with furniture from car boot sales.

And they will celebrate its birthday tonight in suitably upmarket fashion – with a Champagne and oysters reception.

The transformation has impressed national newspapers’ notoriously hard-to-please food critics.

The Guardian’s Matthew Norman lauded the pub under the headline: “How a rough boozer on the cheap side of town had a cheap and cheerful makeover and emerged as one of the finest gastro-pubs in the country.”

In the review he said: “The Magdalen Arms belongs less in a food guide than Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

“What was a ‘puke ’n’ sawdust’ football pub has been transformed into a cracking bistro pub. They’ve done it cheaply but well, creating an engagingly boho feel.

“Being the best restaurant in Oxford may not be a glittering accolade, but being among the very best of its kind in Britain perhaps is.”

The notoriously opinion-ated Times food reviewer Giles Coren tweeted in June this year: “Wonderful meal last night at The Magdalen. The hake alone worth the drive from London.”

He said it is “currently serving the best food for 50 miles around”.

The Oxford Times food critic Christopher Gray said he could recall no bigger buzz about a new place in more than three decades of covering the city’s restaurant scene.

Miss Fowler said: “We don’t do any advertising, we just work really honestly and it’s all done from the heart.”

Jericho-born chef Mr Abarno, 35, came back to the city after the couple moved from the renowned Hope and Anchor pub in London.

He said: “It’s great thinking about it going from the three people who visited us on the second night, to 120 coming in an evening.

“It was a big drinking den in the past.

“We always knew it was going to be a slower start than anything we’d done in London, but we got there in the end.

“We’ve had great press and loads of local support, and we’re very pleased with how it’s gone.”

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Bosses said although the smoking ban, rising tax and duty and the general economy were still causing problems, they remained confident pubs have a sound future.

Mark Bromley, regional operations manager for the pub company, said despite losing 17 pubs since April, the county had enjoyed a “good year” with figures showing a one per cent increase in trading compared to a national fall of up to eight per cent.

He said: “I believe the industry will survive and investment is the way forward.”

Recent investments include £75,000 in the Royal Sun at Begbroke which reopened four weeks ago, £50,000 on the Nuffield Arms in Cowley and £53,000 on the Chester Arms, in Chester Street, Oxford.

Planned investments include £70,000 at the New Inn at Middleton Cheney and £80,000 for the Ben Jonson at Weston-on-the-Green.

Mr Bromley said: “We know there’s still a market. It’s about retail standards, good quality and the right choice of alcohol.”