St Aldates Tavern, Oxford

Pub SignMan left this review about St Aldates Tavern

This is a cosy and compact single room pub with a good central location close to Christ Church College. The pub has a lovely herringbone patterned parquet floor, walls painted in a warm colour scheme and a high ceiling dotted with fancy light fittings. A row of tables and chairs runs down each side of the room, supplemented by a drinking ledge to the right with some high stools, and a short L-shaped banquette under one of the front windows. The room’s centrepiece is probably the attractive fireplace, which stands to the left, just before the servery appears midway into the room. The bar counter has a sweeping curved end, fronted by nice wood panels, all in front of a rather pedestrian modern bar back. The place has gone for a contemporary version of a traditional pub, and this is perhaps best reflected in the décor and furnishings, which include some very cool looking old lamps, lots of miscellaneous pictures around the walls, a trophy cabinet with various bits of sporting equipment next to it, several mirrors, some old barrel ends and a couple of TV screens, one of which was showing a muted football documentary for the benefit of absolutely no-one. The pub does run a way beyond the bar, but seating back here seemed to be pretty limited and no-one was sat back her. There was a good collection of board games stacked up in the front window and the clientele ranged from elderly ladies dining, young students reading in front of the fireplace and a few lecturer types. A decent indie soundtrack played at an unobtrusive level throughout the course of my visit.
A cheery barman greeted me and poured me a fine pint of Oakham Citra from a cask range that also included XT25, Animal Ice Kings, St Austell Tribute and Hook Norton old Hooky plus a Lilleys cider and an unused pump. The Citra was in excellent condition and was definitely befitting of the pub’s Good Beer Guide inclusion.
This seemed like a very nice little pub doing all of the basics pretty well. I felt very welcome and comfortable sat here with my beer and paper and could happily have spent longer here if the opportunity had arisen. I perhaps doesn’t quite have the ‘wow’ factor of some of Oxford’s more prominent historic pubs, nor quite the ale range of a top alehouse, but I enjoyed my time here and would definitely recommend it as a quiet bolthole away from the tourists and shoppers that dominate this part of town.

On 7^th February 2022 - rating: 7
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