Freud
Café, Drinking Establishment & Gig Venue
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The most aesthetically impressive drinking venue in Oxford, Freud's is a converted church in Jericho. Art installations, soaring classical architecture, occasional live music of a jazz/blues orientation or DJs on weekends. Good cocktails and snacky grub. Small sun terrace at front for summer posing.
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119 Walton Street Ads by Daily Info:
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I hired the venue for my 30th birthday and boy oh boy, what a fantastic evening had by all, good basic home cooked food that was very fresh and the cocktails were even more amazing..Thanks to the managers and staff for all their hard work into making my party a night to remember! Will definitely return for a pizza and a cocktail sometime...
Calvin McEvoy, 19/01/08 Although I have yet to try Freud's food menu, I have been there a number of times for cocktails and found them to be inventive and delicious. Although very pricey (around a fiver each), you get to savour a rather unusual experience in Freud's. The combination of the music, art, architecture while you enjoy your drink is a nice change to an ordinary pub or bar. Although the acoustics are a bit strange, it reminds you that you are sitting in a former church (the windows and remaining pews are nice authentic touches without being overwhelming). Overall, based on my experiences, Freud's is a lovely place to go in the evening for a pre/post drink in Jericho. Tash, 09/01/08 Had previously last visited Freud over 5 years ago and remembered it for its amazing interior, its good wine selection and its downright awful toilets! Went back recently and found it to be mostly the same. By some stroke of fate, we visited on one of the only weekend days of this English summer to allow us to sit outside without the use of a rain mac or thermal gloves! I chose an overpriced, but pretty good mojito (charging almost £7 for a standard cocktail just doesn't wash outside London). My lady-friend went for a lime-based Caipirainha (spelt wrong probably). The interior was still glorious and the food still looks good, but the novelty for me is starting to wear off, particularly at these prices. Joe B, 20/07/07 great food, and recently discovered new cocktails...a must. Loved the fact we could basically have a drink, read the free newpapers, listen to the live jazz, view the art work and be left to our own devices... suzy, 03/04/07 Great for undergraduates. I wouldn't recommend taking your parents here, or anyone who is looking for a nice evening out. Very casual, okay food and decent prices but certainly not outstanding. The building could be spectacular but school cafeteria style tables and chairs and thrown in randomly, and little has been done to renovate the old church to its potential. Again, a mainly undergraduate hang out that isn't bad for a quick drink before your night out. Alex, 02/09/06 Something of a local institution, this popular venue on the edge of Jericho manages to fulfil a variety of functions for the residents of North Oxford. A café/bar with a late licence, serving food from a limited but appetising menu throughout the day, Freud is a great place to go for lunch or a coffee, or to take a group of friends for cocktails on the evening. Set in a converted church, Freud is also, in a small way, an art gallery, and offers live jazz most evenings and on Sunday afternoons. A party of four, we arrived early, knowing how packed Freud can get later in the evening. Deciding to eat at seven o'clock on a Monday night during the university vacation, however, proved to be something of an overcompensation. Except for a few late-afternoon coffee drinkers on the small terrace outside, the place was deserted. Not that this detracted from the atmosphere, but rather gave us an opportunity to appreciate our surroundings. The Neo-classical former church of St Paul with its stained-glass windows and cavernous dimensions forms an atmospheric backdrop to an evening out, and the sometimes remarkable but always enthusiastic artworks haphazardly festooning the walls provide additional eye candy. The stained walls and building-work-in-progress look of the balcony end of the place add to the impression that you could be visiting some kind of poshed-up artists' squat on the continent - the very essence of shabby-chic. The starters, generous and unpretentious, left little to be desired. We shared garlic bread/bruschetta, a plate of houmous, olives, salad and fresh bread, and an enormous plate of spicy nachos with fresh guacamole, salsa, soured cream and cheese. Prices of these delicious inflated bar snacks were very reasonable, ranging between £3.50 and £5. The pizzas, chosen from a good selection and attractively priced at around £6 each, were on the bland side - the calzones rather too doughy, the pepperoni picante slightly overdone - and the halloumi cheese salad platter was rather too much like an expanded starter to be worth its £6.95. (Admittedly the huge size of the actual starters and the heat of the day might have dented our appetites, and thus our appreciation, by that point.) The service was friendly, though a little too relaxed; our waitress, although otherwise very helpful, was not sure of the names of cocktails (perhaps unsurprisingly give the extent of the menu) and of which ingredients/dishes were unavailable, and there was a long wait between ordering and receiving our pre-diner drinks. The cocktails themselves, at around the £4 or £5 mark, were delicious however, though there was some discussion as to whether they'd diminished in strength over the years (though thinking back to some of the nights I spent there as a student, this probably wouldn't be a bad thing). As we left at nearly nine o'clock, the first of the evening's clientele were starting to arrive and the bar was beginning to get busy. You can wait a long time for a drink in Freud when it gets really full, but it's usually worth it, and the place itself is justly popular. This may not be the place to go for a romantic dinner for two or a memorable gastronomic experience, but for a quiet lunch or a less than quiet evening with friends, in beautiful and unusual surroundings, you won't go far wrong. Susie Cogan, 27/10/05 Less of a café, more of a way of life for the residents of North Oxford, Freud's is quite overwhelming the first time you enter, being, basically a huge renovated church (thank the lord they left the stained glass windows in). Serving a decent array of food from Nachos to a (quite extensive) selection of pizzas, Freuds offers you just that little bit more than the average café. Perfect for large parties (though don't expect the food to arrive all at the same time, as there is only one poor beleaguered chef on duty most of the time), it's also ideally suited for a quick afternoon cuppa. Live music is also on the agenda every night (great so long as you like jazz funk or funk jazz, not so great if you don't) - though the music is sometimes lost in the cavernous recesses of the building. Freuds also has a late license, so it's perfect for a post-pub hideously-overpriced bottle of Becks. Damn good cocktails too. Christian, 27/10/05 The music is always of a very high quality but the acoustics in this converted Greek orthodox church are truly awful. Regular jazz piano slots take on a rather pleasant ambient quality but live bands suffer terribly. Jack, 20/07/05
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