Eagles Fine Foods
A Deddington deli stacked with local cheeses, cured meats, proper bread and a wine selection that takes the guesswork out of supper.
A Deddington deli stacked with local cheeses, cured meats, proper bread and a wine selection that takes the guesswork out of supper.
Eagles sits right on the market place in Deddington, one of those handsome Oxfordshire market towns that punches well above its weight. It is an independent food shop that has been part of the town for more than sixty years, and it is the first place we point people when they want to cook properly at the cottage rather than throw a supermarket meal deal in the oven. The shop is compact but seriously well stocked: high-welfare meats cut on site, a good spread of cheeses, greengrocer-style fruit and vegetables, freshly baked bread, and a shelf of artisanal drinks that someone has clearly thought hard about.
Deddington sits to the east of us, and the run over takes around twenty minutes on the quiet lanes through the villages. It is the sort of drive you make on purpose rather than resent, and the town rewards it: parking is easy and close to the shop, there are a couple of good pubs, and a farmers' market fills the market place on the fourth Saturday of each month. What makes Eagles worth the trip over a big supermarket is that so much of what it sells has a name and a provenance behind it. The staff know their stock, the counter is manned by people who can point you to the right cheese for a board, and it is the kind of shop where you pop in for butter and leave with a bag you did not plan on.
For a self-catering week this is the shop that changes the rhythm of the cooking. You plan the meals around what looks best on the counter rather than around a list written before you left home. The meat counter is the reason a lot of people make the trip, but it is the bread, cheese and the odd treat that tend to fill the basket for a lazy first evening. Nothing here needs dressing up: it is good produce, sold well, by people who care about it.
We tend to treat Eagles as the destination shop rather than the top-up. The plan is usually a joint or some chops from the meat counter for one proper dinner, a board from the cheese and charcuterie for the first night, a loaf of their bread and whatever the greengrocer side is doing well that week. The shop is open seven days, which is worth knowing if you are arriving late on a Friday and want the makings of supper ready when you walk through the door. For the everyday basics we lean on the supermarkets in Chipping Norton, then come here when we want the cooking to feel like part of the holiday.
If you are building a week of good eating, Eagles sits in fine company. Wykham Park Farm Shop is the working farm shop over towards Banbury, with its own butchery and a serious cheese counter; Daylesford is the grand organic farm shop to the west and worth a morning in its own right; and Diddly Squat Farm Shop is the Clarkson curiosity worth a look if the queue is not out the door. For the full picture, our guide to eating and drinking in the area runs from village pubs to farm shops and everything in between.
“We always call in on the way over. A slab of local cheese, some of their bread and a bottle of red, and the first evening sorts itself out.”
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.