Reviewed
18.1.00

The waitress and I recognised each other immediately. She used to work in the shoe shop where I used to mooch around. In the soft, deflected light of the plush new premises we were like old acquaintances. We had walk on parts in the increasingly commercial success story of Oxford. New restaurants with new eating concepts open every day. The old Barclays Bank on the High Street, the one no one ever walked to because it was too far, is now a swanky restaurant with a huge interior. There is an oval bar with wine glasses floating above you, leather sofas flanked by large surreal paintings, and mirrors inset into the walls where you can check your lipstick without moving. It is one of those places which has been designed all the way from the front door to the loo. Which is probably why you can listen to Goldfinger in what used to be a bank! And drink a beautiful looking golden Colori Chardonnay while trying to ignore the neighbouring chat about whether Conran designed the furniture. No, he didn't, apparently. And the food? It is managed by Alberto Brunelli, the bumptious and friendly baby-faced chef who could have walked off the set of The Italian Job.

Though the steel kitchen looks like the interior of the get away van, the food was excellent. The chef said he brought in many of the ingredients straight from Italy, along with half the cooks. The menu too was a culinary exchange trip. The primo piatti were all rustic Italian, with the main courses being more home based. My brunette had a buttery fettucine carbonara, soaked in juice, which tasted like a prelude to sex; the endive salad with fresh pears I had being virginal in comparison. I guiltily ate a succulent grilled veal cutlet as a follow-up while he tried the pizza of the day: gorganzola with spinach and sundried tomatoes on a base as thin as a Milanese roof in acid rain. The pizza was disappointingly over-cheesy; the cutlet bloody and delicious.

With starters and main courses for two, with wine, costing a justifiable £45, Quod Bar is definitely proves itself as a welcome addition to Oxford's dining scene.

Aruna Wittman

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