The Oarsman

From September 2024 The Oarsman in Marlow is the latest home of Simon Bonwick, who made a name for himself for his solo cooking, earning a Michelin star for The Crown at Burchetts Green before moving to the Dew Drop Inn. The pub opened in its current from in 2021, owned by the same people (Nigel Sutcliffe and James Mclean) that run The Crown in Bray. The format is a set menu for just twelve guests. The main pub offers an a la carte menu. Simon cooks upstairs in a tiny kitchen barely large enough for one person to stand, and he cooks entirely on his own, without even a kitchen porter to help. The dining room itself has a rather grand communal table for twelve people, with Simon’s paintings adorning the walls. The format is a fixed tasting menu priced at £75, and optional wine pairings at £60 or £99. Many vegetables used in the dishes come from his family allotment.

The main pub wine list had 228 labels and ranged in price from £26 to £600, with a median price of £64 and an average markup to retail price of 3.1 times. Sample references were Château de la Mirande Picpoul de Pinet 2023 at £34 for a bottle that you can find in the high street for £13, Jim Barry Wines Watervale Riesling 2023 at £40 compared to its retail price of £14, and Rioja Reserva, Viña Ardanza 2015 at £95 for a wine that will set you back £30 in the high street. For those with the means there was La Rioja Alta Gran Reserva 904 2015 at £225 compared to its retail price of £74, and AA Cavallotto Barolo Riserva Bricco Boschis 2013 at £372 for a wine whose current market value is £150.

Bread rolls were made from scratch in the kitchen and had good texture. The first course was raw scallop with pulp ratatouille. The scallop itself was of high quality, with the generous slices of the scallop having excellent natural sweetness. The pulp ratatouille was quite a strong-tasting pairing for the scallop but did not overwhelm the delicate shellfish (14/20). Crab from Salcombe was freshly prepared, the white crab meat glistening, accompanied with batons of apple, a slice of tomato, a little caviar and a few cashew nuts. This was a dish that was deliberately quite simple in construction, showcasing the excellent quality crab, with the apple bring some acidity (15/20). Loin and cheek of pork from Orchard Farm was accompanied root vegetables and an intense red wine reduction that had taken almost two weeks to make. The pork was carefully cooked and had excellent flavour, and the sauce was really lovely, deep and glistening (16/20).

 Roquefort was served with a crisp tuile as a cheese course prior to dessert. This was apple tartlet with vanilla ice cream and butterscotch and was the least convincing dish of the meal. The pastry was fine but I think it needed more apple relative to pastry, though the ice cream was very good indeed, with plenty of vanilla flavour (13/20). Simon Bonwick can make excellent desserts, as I experienced several times at The Crown at Burchetts Green. Petit fours were classy, with an excellent canelé in particular having a hint of rum and very good texture, moist on the centre and crisp on the outside. A classic shortbread was lovely, and a Florentine was also very good (16/20 petit fours). Coffee was the excellent Jamaican Blue Mountain from Difference Coffee.

Service was lovely throughout the evening. The bill came to £197 per person with the posher wine pairing and some champagne in addition. The food element of £75 seems very reasonable to me given the quality of ingredients, an amount that would not buy you two courses in some pretty mediocre London restaurants. It is good to see Simon Bonwick back in action behind the stoves. Given this was literally the opening night the standard of food was high, and will doubtless only improve as he settles into his new kitchen.