Culinary guide

• The Alternative Tuck Shop: Holywell Street. Not to be confused with the Tuck Shop (on the other corner of the block). Sells home-made food to the hungry - the nearest food shop to the Science Area.

• Bar Celona (note the pun!): Little Clarendon Street. An unvaried range of spanish and mexican tapas is relieved by the circumstances - a real spanish tapas bar in an Oxford street! The potato bravas is hot enough for my taste, so be prepared. The nervous should avoid looking up at the ceiling with its horizontal racks of empty wine bottles, or sit in the middle of the room. Recommended, and not only for the waitresses.

• Bath Place: just off Holywell Street on the alleyway to the Turf Tavern. Named after the alleyway, and not to be confused with Parson's Pleasure! Quite expensive nouvelle cuisine for project managers only in general, but the set lunch is a reasonable price for the quality. Good for celebratory workshops with a long lunch `hour'. You can stay here as well, but again, it is fairly pricey.

• Ben's Cookies, in the Covered Market between Market Street and the High. Best cookies in town, freshly made on the premises. Coffee is also available. This is ideal for very informal workshops since there are no seats!

• The Blue Coyote: St. Clements, just across Magdalen Bridge. Wild, wild night life and prices to match. Well worth the effort but has changed hands and name!

• Browns: at the bottom end of Woodstock Road (top of St. Giles), very popular mid-range eating house in the pseudo-literary scene. Good (but invariant) selection of dishes. Wonderful waitresses. Afternoon tea also served.

• Dôme: Small-scale Browns in Little Clarendon Street, round the corner. The portions are smaller and neater, but the prices are bigger. Someone must play the pinball machine in the entrance soon! Now changed to the Café Rouge - all in French and red.

• The Elizabeth: St. Aldates. Expensive French cuisine; definitely for Project Managers only. Go here for traditional quality with excellent service, rather than something novel. The set lunch is good value, but you may still need a Project Manager in tow or some other good excuse.

• Freuds: Walton Street. A must for the serious tourist and not-so-serious academic, the only church where they serve drinks - a piano stands where the priest used to preach, and the angels are only plaster statues, but the atmosphere is still all there.

• Gee's: just round the corner from North Parade on the Banbury Road. Set in a glass house with no air-conditioning, but they do open the windows on hot days. Prices similar to 15 North Parade.

• Halifax House: next to the Science Area. Choice of two vegetables and fish or meat. Recommended for poor walkers and undiscriminating eaters.

• Hero's: Ship Street, off Cornmarket Street in the centre of town. Useful and cheap sandwich bar without smoke and with newspapers and iced water. Good for workshops. Very crowded (mostly with students) at lunchtime. Go mid morning or mid afternoon if possible.

• Maison Blanc, French patisserie: Next to Browns on Woodstock Road and worth every exorbitant penny. French spoken by imported shop assistants! They now have automatic doors to play with on the way in and out.

• Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons: In the Manor House at Great Milton a few miles outside Oxford. Raymond Blanc's top-notch restaurant: probably the best in the country. For ultimate kudos, arrive by helicopter on the private heli-pad. Only for use on the successful completion of well-funded research projects within budget - it's bound to use up whatever is left, but you won't be disappointed. The attention to detail is incredible and you can finish up with handmade petits fours. If you go for lunch, you can have an amble around the grounds afterwards (where many of the vegetables are grown) or have a leisurely game of croquet if the weather is good. You can buy the book if you want to try to do the cooking at home.

• Michael's Restaurant/Bar: St. Michael's Street, at the New Inn Hall Street end. The restaurant downstairs is the posher and more expensive bit; the bar upstairs has a cheaper menu, although you can ask to see this in the restaurant. Upstairs has a glass roof - nice on sunny days no doubt. This is the sort of place you would expect to find in Little Clarendon Street (cf. next entry). You can get your thesis bound at Maltby's next door (not quite while you eat, I'm afraid). Also, browse through Mallam's Auction Rooms just a little further up St. Michael's Street after lunch if it's open and you don't have to get back quickly. You can put in a written bid if you find something you want.

• Michel's Brasserie: Little Clarendon Street. Highly acceptable food ranging from the basic steak to delicate nouvelle cuisine dishes. Affordable by rich and poor alike (the set lunches are particularly good value), but it's better to be rich.

• McDonalds, Cornmarket Street: fewer queues than the one in Moscow, but otherwise of no special interest. Now there is a competing Burger King just down the street and plans are afoot for a genuine American-style drive-thru McDonalds down the Cowley Road; that's progress I suppose. Ho-hum ...

• Munchy-Munchy, on the north side of Park End Street towards the station. Good Malayan food, cooked in front of you. If you go back again, they add a bit of extra chilli each time. Try the `Dragon's Eye' tea with real dragon's eyes in the bottom of the pot.

• 15 North Parade (named after the address), north of the OUCL (but south of South Parade of course). Nouvelle cuisine and the way to empty your pocket in style. For Project Managers and entourage only. The set lunch is relatively reasonably priced and could be afforded by mere workers at a pinch! Includes air-conditioning - recommended on hot summer days.

• The Opium Den, at the bottom of George Street. Ask for the dim sum menu of Chinese nibbles which may be shared between several people. Order 2-3 dishes per person. The chicken feet are delicious, but not for the faint hearted! It's best to go in a crowd; then you get a big round table with a rotating centre for the food - much more fun. This provides a different version of the Dining Philosophers problem which has yet to be solved.

• The Poor Student. Next to Hero's - no poor students allowed in, but there are better ways to pick the company in which you wish to dine. Looks good on expense forms, but sadly has changed hands and name.

• Queen's Lane Coffee Shop, on Queen's Lane(!) and High Street: much better than the one in St. Giles (see below). You may spot a famous author or two (or not, as the case may be).

• Rick's: Cowley Road. One of a number of fine restaurants down the Cowley Road, this one serves Caribbean food with style. Try the clams or the sprats, and always order a side-dish of plantain.

• Rosie Lee: On the High Street, too up-market to be a café, but thats what it is! Try somewhere else.

• St. Giles' café: In a nice place, and unpretentious, but only because it actually has no claim to excellence. Best to walk past quickly!

• Taylor's: shop at the top end of St. Giles on the corner of Little Clarendon Street, much frequented by PRG people because of its proximity to Keble Road. Try a pitta sandwich or a vegetable pastie if you are a first-timer. You can have food heated in the micro-wave here or in the Keble Road Common Room where most Taylor's food is consumed by PRG'ers.

• Thai Orchid: St. Clements. Just past Angel Pavement and the sadly demised Alexander's Jazz café, the coach to London stops outside on its way out of the city centre. The superb decor prepares one for the superb Thai cuisine. Best hurry, in case it goes too.

• The Wykeham Coffee Shop: opposite New College in Holywell Street. The nearest approximation to a Devon Cream Tea in Oxford may be had here. Worth going if you can't get to Devon during your visit.

• The café in the bus station: not the plastic one with the clean tables and glass windows, but the real café where the bus-drivers wait for their shifts. They will cook anything you ask for, but think hard before eating it.

• The chip shop next to Carfax on the High: at the commercial centre of town, and discretely set back along a short alleyway, you can smell your way to this plaice place.

• Oxford has a worldwide reputation for Kebab vans! Try:
  • Ahmed's opposite University College in the High Street. The best!
  • Chef's Corner.
  • Tasty Kebabs opposite Pizza 2 Go in St. Ebbe's.
  • Ali's, on the Woodstock Road near Somerville College.
  • McCoy's Kebab Stand, opposite Christ Church. Spuds recommended!
  • The Roving Gourmet, opposite Balliol College, south end of St. Giles. Best kebabs at a good price!
  • Anwar the Kebabmaster, the Broad.
  • Houssain 'Cruise', the blue and white van of the St. Giles bab-van, outside St. Cross College.
  See also Cambridge kebab information.