The Lamb
A pub right on the green at Shipton-under-Wychwood: good beer, country cooking, a garden that catches the evening light.
A pub right on the green at Shipton-under-Wychwood: good beer, country cooking, a garden that catches the evening light.
There are plenty of pubs in the Cotswolds that have been polished into something they never quite were. The Lamb hasn't. It sits on the High Street in Shipton-under-Wychwood, a 17th-century stone building with bare floorboards, low beams and a full house of good-humoured locals at the weekend. Peter Creed and Tom Noest took it on in 2021, after making a success of the Bell at Langford, and it has quietly become one of the pubs we most look forward to driving over for. The trick they've pulled off is a hard one: it still feels like the village local, but the food is genuinely ambitious.
The cooking is unfussy and robust, seasonal, built around what the butcher, the fishmonger and the local game dealers and farmers can supply that week. There are pub classics on the menu alongside braver things: offal, game, and a real fondness for the nose-to-tail cooking of Fergus Henderson, which chef Noest cites as an influence. The other surprise is the pizza oven. We nearly always start by sharing the garlic, bone marrow and parsley flatbread, which has become something of a signature, before someone at the table orders the steak frites. It is the sort of place where you come for a quiet pint and stay for three courses, and the menu changes often enough that it never quite reads the same twice.
Shipton-under-Wychwood is a lovely run from Ledwell, about twenty-five minutes west through Chipping Norton and down into the Evenlode valley. The village sits neatly between Burford and Chipping Norton, so we tend to fold a visit into a day exploring one or the other and roll up hungry. It is worth booking a table, especially at the weekend, as word has got round and the dining room fills. The Lamb also has ten renovated bedrooms upstairs, useful if you have friends who can't quite squeeze into the cottage or fancy making a proper night of it.
We think of it as an evening pub above all, a place for a relaxed dinner when nobody wants to cook. Lunch runs from midday, dinner from six most nights, though it is always worth checking their site before you set off. That said, the weekday set lunch has a reputation as one of the best-value plates in Oxfordshire, two courses for a very fair price, so a leisurely midday visit is no bad thing either. For a nearer option, The Royal Oak at Ramsden is another honest village pub we rate, and if you want the fuller picture of where to eat locally, our guide to eating and drinking in the area runs from village pubs like this one to farm shops and market-town restaurants.
“The Lamb is our go-to when we want a proper pub evening. No frills on the surface, but the kitchen means it. That bone marrow flatbread, a good pint, and the garden on a summer night. Hard to beat.”
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.