Warm and welcoming, The Ox is that old cliche The Gastropub, but fear not as it’s also a rather good restaurant
It seems a long time since the Gastropub first burst onto the scene. A very long time, indeed.
Readers of a certain age won’t recall a dark era when pub food was a shrink wrapped scotch egg nested in a perspex box, and that’s if you were lucky. Most of the time a bag of stale crisps, or a packet of teeth-shattering pork scratchings, were the only booze sponges.
Most pubs today of course serve food as a given, in fact it would probably be economically impossible to survive otherwise. The Ox is making their food a focus, while keeping it ‘pubby’ in this corner of Clapham, and overall it’s doing it very well.
Owned by the same people as The Rose & Crown, at The Polygon, Clapham, when The Ox opened November 2024 it offered a menu with Pan-Asian twists, but that seems to have been changed as the menu when we went in was firmly rooted in the west.
A very cosy space at the front wraps itself around a bar with the usual taps for beers. A pair of empty cabinets are, I first assume, for wine, but closer inspection reveals they are actually for dry aging meat. All the pub’s beef is grass fed and ethically and sustainably reared on their farm in Melrose on the Scottish borders.
There’s a mezzanine level, which feels a bit distant and disconnected, and a ‘proper restaurant area ‘The Snug’ down a level. The night we go in this area is mostly for people watching The Traitors on the big screen*. Not wishing to have Claudia Winkelman dining with us, we stay in the pleasant bar area.
This is a good choice, apart from the cold air when the door opens, and it opens a lot as the pub seems deservedly popular with locals, some of whom are still wearing their old school rugby shirts as informal evening wear, presumably unaware of Harry Enfield’s comic character Tim.
The menu is classic Gastro – starters include Braised lamb neck – gentleman’s relish, apple puree, granny smith apple, and Pan seared scallops – crumbed fish croquettes, pea puree, broccolini, pea shoots. All good stuff, but I go for the Ox cheek toastie, plus for P a Black pudding, scotch egg with pickled onion mayonnaise.
The toastie sandwich is the kind of thing that could become an influencer craze – easy to eat and easy on the eye. The sourdough nicely sodden with meat juices, the meat tender and slow cooked, and the piped onion cream on top a soft delight. Personally I’d have seasoned the meat some more, and to test my theory I add some table salt and the taste-o-meter goes up sharply.
The scotch egg dish looks good. My sample snatched away from a snarlingly defensive P reveals a crisp exterior, a piquant black pudding corona and an egg perfectly cooked to the right amount of runniness. The pickled onion mayo is excellent, the sharpness nicely cutting in.
Mains obviously include steaks, excellent ones too I am sure, but we only eat steak at home and not too often. Instead P likes the sound of Roasted Fillet of Sea Bass, lemon butter velouté, Jerusalem artichoke, chive oil, and is rewarded with a very good dish (her words) with slightly burnt Jerusalem artichoke (my observation from across the table). A winner otherwise.
My Norfolk chicken breast, wild mushrooms, Parmenter potatoes, red chicory, jus is jus(t) let down by the jus, which is over-thickened with flour and lacking flavour, while the mushrooms don’t seem very wild to me but simply standard farm mushrooms. Excellent chicken though, on the bone as it should always be and cooked just right. Not a bad dish but needs some work. We share some decent fries.
And dessert is a classic Sticky Toffee Pudding, which is top hole, although the sauce is rather salty, and we share a generous helping of profiterole-adjacent pastries so generous in number we couldn’t eat them all.
Overall we liked The Ox. It’s not too far from home, which means a repeat visit isn’t out of the question to try the other dishes, either as another three-course meal or as individual snacks. A bit more care over seasoning wouldn’t go amiss but otherwise it’s recommended.
*Traitors weekly screenings every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 9pm until the grand finale on 24th January.
50 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UL
Tel: 020 7846 7151
| I: @theoxlondon