The 8th choice by Ingrid was the 2 Michelin star restaurant Le Manoir in the countryside of Oxfordshire with a beautiful garden where they grow all their own vegetables and herbs. Therefore we also for the first time went for lunch instead of dinner – so we could fully enjoy seeing this place in daylight and make a whole afternoon out of it.
We took a taxi to the restaurant that it is pretty much in the middle of nowhere and got greeted as soon as we arrived – where the reception staff came outside to welcome us and show us to a table in the beautiful garden to have a drink before lunch. So a great welcome but we then had to sit nearly 20 minutes and wait for our drinks, which was a bit unexpected.
There was no rush and we got proper time to enjoy our drinks before being shown to our table in the very light and bright restaurant. Another reason why it felt great to be there during daytime. We did have a Sommelier providing a bit of help with the wine – but there was nothing about that service that stood out to me.
All of us had the 7 courses lunch menu – don’t think there was any other choice – but because I am not a huge fan of beetroot, which was the first course – I got to change that and Carlos who is not a huge fan of chocolate got to change his chocolate dessert – so the restaurant offered us some flexibility. The starters were really great – I loved the salmon and also the lobster dish, which were both really delicious. However as we have unfortunately experienced quite a few times – the main course cannot live up to the starters. We had lamb for the main – but mine was really fatty and for the first time I left some of the meat behind.
As usual we love a cheese course and did ask to add a plate from the cheese trolley. Turned out that one plate was enough for the 4 of us and we had some lovely cheeses to try. The main strawberry dessert was huge – I liked it a lot but because of the size it became a bit overwhelming. After the final dessert we were again offered to move to the garden for our coffees, which we were happy about as we also brought a cigar to enjoy in the garden with a whisky as well. The only downside about being in the garden was that once more we experienced a really slow service and had to wait ages for our whiskies.
The whole day the weather had been perfect but in the afternoon some clouds started to turn up and we decided it was time for a walk in the garden if we didn’t want to suddenly get rained on. The garden is really impressive and have got some amazing sculptures as well. It was just a beautiful walk after a nice lunch. We literally just managed to finish the walk when heaven opened up – so this time we escaped to the bar inside for a final drink before ordering a taxi back. Once more we waited for ages for someone serving us – so that is one thing that could definitely improve together with a better main course. Otherwise we spent 7 hours at Le Manoir and had a lovely afternoon in stunning surroundings.
