Enjoy English asparagus on its own with butter or bearniase, to compliment fish or meat or as a key ingredient in risottos or tarts.

Quod: Set lunch/early supper menu

Gee’s: Lunch & dinner menu

Old Parsonage: Set lunch/early supper menu

On graduating I stayed in London & formed an artists’ collective with some peers with a plan to survive solely from selling our paintings. One collector I met, in a restaurant in which I was working, suggested I join his group of companies in the Corporate Finance department. Although interesting I found office life a little quiet compared to the hospitality environment & decided to return to Oxford. I secured an interview at Gee’s but received an offer of employment from the Old Parsonage where I remained for a year as part of their waiting team. From there I transferred to Quod, working for a further two years before returning to the Old Parsonage, this time as an Assistant Manager. My enthusiasm, passion & attention to detail paid off as within six months I received an offer to become the Senior Restaurant Manager at the newly refurbished Gee’s.

Working at the new Gee’s has been especially rewarding for me not just because I love the concept of the restaurant but also because being part of its inception has given me a perspective on the business that I otherwise would never have seen.

I spend a lot of time in restaurants around Oxford & even more so in London; a week without trying a new restaurant or gaining fresh visions is quite a dire week for me. Gee’s feels like a little London & reflects how I dine & view food – fresh ingredients cooked in a transparent method so you know what you’re eating & it’s just the best version of itself.

I hope you feel the same, I look forward to welcoming you.

Just arrived on the menu at the Old Parsonage dishes include Rofford rack of lamb, turnip puree, baby carrots & spinach or slow roasted shoulder, mash & purple sprouting.

At Gee’s there are great little chargrilled chops served with sauce vierge or order ahead for a succulent leg of lamb to share from our wood fire oven. Sundays, expect to see plenty of roast Rofford lamb too.

At Quod a popular special is lamb chops with Jersey royals & anchovy butter.

Rofford Farm is situated eight miles from Oxford in the heart of South Oxfordshire’s rolling lowlands. Made up of water meadows & woods it is ideal for producing high quality livestock.

The farm has been developed over the years by our farm manager who single handedly cares for the stock & produces the winter feed of hay & silage. Adopting all the true free range principles for the production of our meat means complete traceability from birth to the time it becomes one of the ingredients of our dishes!

Oxford is a great literary city which yielded a team of readers & a shortlist of twenty was produced. This was again reduced to six strong candidates contending for the very generous prize of £7,500. The panel of judges was made up of Prue Leith, writer, journalist & cookery expert, Donald Sloan, Director of Hospitality at Oxford Brookes University, Roma Tearne the celebrated author & of course myself. We all unanimously agreed on the winner, who successfully submitted the story ‘A dish of Chocolate Ice-Cream’.

On March 19th, eighty five guests witnessed Emma Seaman collecting her prize at a special dinner held at our exciting ‘new look’ Gee’s Restaurant. The menu was masterminded by the Michelin starred London chef, Atul Kochhar, & was held to celebrate the first short story prize in conjunction with Oxford Gastronomica & the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival. Amongst a glittering line up of guests were Claudia Roden, Madhur Jaffrey & Raymond Blanc along with the famous ‘world slow food movement’ guru, Carlo Petrini.

Why the prize? Well the Oxford Literary Festival has become the pre eminent book festival in the world with well known food and drink speakers featuring prominently on their billing. The Old Bank, Quod Brasserie, the Old Parsonage & Gee’s are all about the best hospitality, great food and wonderful drinks, so the logical step was to sponsor a special short story prize which had to incorporate all those ingredients in some way.

Want to read the winning story? Please click here.

Entries now being sought for the 2014 prize.. get writing!

Jeremy Mogford

Ingredients
A good glug of olive oil
4 white fish fillets (any white fish will do we use hake or cod)
4 handfuls of cooked white beans (butter beans or borlotti would be fine)
4 finely diced shallots
2 finely diced cloves of garlic
Parsley
Finely diced pieces of ham, I use bits of the Iberico ham we serve in the restaurant, just enough to impart some extra flavour (optional)
2 handfuls of clams or cockles
Spinach (optional)

Method
Sweat the shallots in olive oil for five minutes or so, add the garlic, then the ham.
Throw in two handfuls of clams or cockles & add a dash of white wine or sherry, put the lid on & continue to cook on a medium heat until the shells have opened.
Add some fish or vegetable stock, chicken would be fine if that’s what you’ve got to hand.
Add cracked pepper & fresh parsley.
In a separate pan, fry your fish gently until cooked.
Add your beans to your stock at the last minute, they just need to be warmed through.
Use 4 serving dishes. In each dish, spoon in your stock with beans & place your fish on top.
If you wish you could put a small amount of spinach (not too wet) in the middle of each dish before spooning your stock with beans around this & topping the spinach with your fish.

Alternatively, come into Gee’s to try our version & you may catch sight of me as you can see into our kitchen!

Cards to fill in to enter our spring draw will shortly be appearing on tables in our restaurants & hotels; in the meantime it would most definitely be worth your while joining our Gee’s face book page where another fantastic draw will be appearing any minute now!

At UE coffee Ori blends by hand in a small batch 15kg roaster. The roaster is fired using local hazel, oak & ash.

Gee’s own blend (carefully selected by Ori with Gee’s managers Jenni, Sara & Alice) consists of 70% El Saldavor ‘Las Lajas’ & 30% Honduras ‘Capucas’. Las Lajaz is a cooperative high in the mountains of western El Salvador, the coffee from here is fairtrade & organic. Capucas is located in the west of Honduras near the national park ‘Celaque’, meaning ‘box of water’. The rich soil & high altitude gives this coffee is distinct flavour.

Gee’s decaffeinated coffee from Brazil has undergone the swiss water process with no chemicals involved.

March sees the arrival of plenty of pork with prime pork chops at Gee’s chargrilled to perfection & served with spinach & green sauce.

There is plenty of lamb arriving in time for Easter, great little chargrilled chops or order ahead for a succulent leg of lamb to share from our wood fire oven.

Steak is popular on the menu, choose from sirloin steak bearnaise with chips, steak salad with beans & watercress or a current favourite – steak with wild mushrooms & Jerusalem artichokes.

Sunday lunch is a relaxed affair – order ahead for a slow roasted leg of lamb, pork with crackling or a succulent joint of beef from our wood fire oven. Perfect for getting together with family or friends.

Click here for the lunch & dinner menu.

Like as not you will order your drink from Nick, Head Barman at Gee’s. Nick keeps a bag full of tools which he has adapted himself to prepare a perfect cocktail. Choose one from our cocktail list or order a favourite – Nick will also advise on the wine list. You might like something from the small bites section of the menu to start your evening off or make Gee’s bar a your pit stop on the way home from work. Sit at one of our tables in comfort & you’ve chosen an exciting space to eat from the lunch & dinner menu.

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We are serving the following specials on Mothering Sunday in additional to our usual a la carte menu.

Wild garlic & potato soup
Soused mackerel with cucumber & horseradish

Roast beef, Yorkshire, seasonal vegetables
Whole roast baby chicken, roast potatoes, seasonal vegetables

Caramelised bread & butter pudding
Chocolate marquise

We look forward to seeing you.