Natural Bread Company, Little Clarendon Street (breakfast)

I got quite excited about the arrival of the 'posh bread shop' in Jericho. The Natural Bread Company have outlets in Woodstock and Eynsham and regularly attend Oxford's farmers' markets, but now they have a permanent presence in the city. It's not merely a shop, either - according to their website it's a 'cafe and bread bar' called 'Companion'.

St Giles' Café, St Giles'

I feel a bit sorry for the people running the all new St Giles' Café. An internet search for their establishment produces numerous references to its former incarnation as an old-fashioned greasy spoon: only at the bottom of the page does the new owner's website appear. Well, here's one more hit.

Combibos, Gloucester Green

I've been busy recently so I thought I'd do a quick review of somewhere well known to me and to many other people who regularly pass through Gloucester Green. With its crumpled newspapers, genuinely friendly staff, and the lowest and squashiest sofas in Oxford (from which you have to peer up at the person opposite you), Combibos always has a pleasingly familiar feel.

Organic Deli Cafe, Friars Entry (breakfast)

I’m not sure how interesting an ‘Oxford Review of Breakfasts’ would be: most of the time one cafe’s £5 fry-up looks very much like another’s. But there are a few places that devote more creativity and care to the first meal of the day. I’d noticed the loaves of expensive but tasty-looking bread in the windows of the Organic Deli Cafe in the passageway between Magdalen Street and Gloucester Green but had never thought to try eating there until I heard the rumour that they did a very good breakfast. The rumour was correct.

The Rose, High Street (breakfast)

Update (May 2013): The Rose has changed hands since this review was written; the menu is similar but reports suggest the quality may not be the same.

The recession has made people less keen to buy organic food to cook for themselves, but the market for new restaurants that specialise in locally-grown, seasonal produce seems to be stronger than ever, from the much-praised Roganic in London to Oxford's own Oxfork (watch this space for a review of the latter). The Rose, however, is a long-standing fixture on the High Street and must have started serving the fresh and unadulterated fare on which it prides itself long before anyone outside the Bank of England had heard of quantitative easing.