The Oak
The Oak
137 Westbourne Park Road
London W2
England
Tel: +44 (0)20 7221 3395
Serves lunch and dinner Monday to Sunday; children welcome at lunch; terrace.
Most gastropubs in London function as neighbourhood restaurants: you eat in them if you live or work nearby, or if you are visiting the area. But The Oak, a converted corner pub in Notting Hill, has diners coming from as far away as Kew and Hoxton. The chef, Mark Broadbent, who set the style here, worked at The Brackenbury – a groundbreaking, simple neighbourhood restaurant in West London, in its glory days – and you can see its influence in the directness of his food.
In a big, high-ceilinged room with dark slatted blinds and chocolate-brown walls, you can get first-rate pizzas from the wood-fired oven, and modern European dishes that are way ahead of the usual offerings both in terms of authenticity and execution. There’s a bit of the Mediterranean – caponata with goat’s cheese and zarzuela of fish with saffron, for example – but it is the hearty French and English dishes, such as a knock-out confit of pork with Jerusalem artichokes and black pudding and a chocolatey daube of venison with Agen prunes and wild boar sausage, that are the real hitters.
The place is always packed with a huge cross-section of Londoners: mummies with kids in tow, serious elderly diners and hip media types. It’s the sort of sprawling, inclusive, feel-good eatery that every city should have.
