I travelled for 90-minutes to eat at Jeremy Clarkson's pub and two words sum up the experience

Yahoo

17-06-2025

A man has shared how two words sum up his experience at Jeremy Clarkson's pub The Farmer's Dog.
The opening of the Oxfordshire boozer is heavily featured in the latest series of his Amazon Prime show Clarkson's Farm.
Situated around 10 miles from Diddly Squat Farm, viewers of the show watched on as Jeremy spent thousands to open the pub in time for August Bank Holiday last year.
And it seems that almost 12-months on, the eatery is as busy as ever.
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Steffan Rhys, who writes for our sister site WalesOnline, shared his first impressions of the pub.
He said: "There was a full-blown security and parking operation guiding arrivals into an enormous adjacent field with hundreds, if not thousands, of cars already parked in it.
"Visitors streamed like ants in formation between car park and pub and the stunned "bloody hell!" I heard from a fellow visitor pretty much sums up what I was thinking too.
"I'd naively thought that, given I had a lunch reservation (secured easily, several weeks earlier, on the pub website) it would be a quiet affair.
"After all, only so many people can fit in a pub, right? Wrong. Oh, so wrong.
"The first signs that we were not just out at your average local pub for Sunday lunch came a few hundred yards from our destination when the queues of cars and motorbikes started.
"Stewards in high-vis jackets directed us to a nearby field where, despite the numbers, we got a parking space easily (the queues on the road were short-lived too, to be fair, and I didn't even come close to losing my temper). Once parked, it was a short walk across the road to the pub, which surely has to be the most popular in the country.
"There were people everywhere. Dozens of people waited in line to get into the pub (you don't need to queue if you have a reservation and I was impressed that there was a staff member dedicated to finding those of us who did and ushering us to the front)."
Steffan had a look around the shop on site before settling in for his food reservation.
"Much like Clarkson does on his popular Amazon Prime show (I was now starting to realise just how big it is), the pub is very keen to show off its credentials as a supporter of local farms," he said.
Steffan added: "A blackboard on the wall names local farmers Vanessa Hartley and Nick Sinden, as well as Rectory Farm, as sources.
"We ordered a pint of the Hawkstone Black stout (£7) and a half of Hawkstone lager (£3.50). They're great drinks and we sat and waited for our food by watching staff move purposefully through the busy pub, carrying plates loaded up with generous and delicious-looking Sunday roasts and stepping over the odd dog lying at their owners' feet.
"There was a pianist playing a grand piano by the front door, a permanent queue at the bar for a pint and a feelgood buzz running through the whole place — everyone just seemed thrilled to be here, me included.
"My starter of cold-smoked Bibury trout (£11.50) was fantastic - generous, thickly-sliced trout packed with flavour and possibly better than any smoked salmon I've ever had. I'd been to the Bibury trout farm a short drive away two days earlier, which made it all taste even better somehow, as did the accompanying horseradish cream and watercress salad.
"I went for the two-meat main course with beef and pork (£26), which were the only two meat options. It came with roasted whole potatoes, roasted carrots and parsnips, spring greens, red cabbage, cauliflower cheese, Yorkshire pudding and gravy made from the stout.
"It's hard to distinguish one well-made Sunday roast from another so I won't try too hard. This one was generous, tasty and largely faultless (I could probably have done with a drop more of the delicious gravy).
"You could stick with one meat for £2 less and there was a vegetarian option of Wye Valley asparagus with pea pearl barley and a poached egg. Vegans didn't seem to be catered for, which may or may not be on purpose.
"We were too full for pudding but we did see an Eton mess (£10.50) and poached rhubarb crumble cake with Cotswolds ice cream (£10.50) being carried past. Both looked great.
"We were pretty much done with our food within the hour and the bill for two main courses, one starter and two drinks came to £80 (including service). Before leaving, I just wanted to soak in a bit more of the venue so took a look upstairs (also full, of course) and spotted the full-size tractor hanging from the ceiling above the pianist, which I'd somehow managed to miss on the way in.
"Jeremy Clarkson and Amazon Prime have created a phenomenon. But don't let that put you off. The queue for the car park was no more than a few minutes at most and that was the only waiting we did.
"Thanks to our reservation, we were straight in through the front door and we didn't need to queue at the shop for our beer and honey either. My overriding impression of the huge crowd was how happy we all were to be there.
"If you wanted a beer (inside or outside) or something from the butcher, you should probably expect a queue, but that's pretty much it.
"I felt a bit guilty about being one of the hordes of people taking over what was presumably a quiet and anonymous part of Oxfordshire 12 months ago, but reports suggest most people in the area are happy to have the pub so consider me guilt-free now.
"I'm glad I went and will remember it for a long time. Pubs aren't only about food, they're about how they make you feel. And I loved every second of this trip.
"If it had been hammering down with rain, I might feel differently — but being from Wales, I should probably be used to that."