The Store Oxford

You're walking down Broad Street past the colleges and suddenly you spot somewhere that doesn't feel like it's been designed for the Oxford postcard crowd. The Store is right there on one of the city's grandest stretches, but it manages to feel refreshingly unbothered by all that. It's a proper hotel with rooms upstairs, but the ground floor is where the action is — a restaurant and bar that's become genuinely embedded in the local fabric. The space itself is smart without being pretentious, with that kind of contemporary polish you'd expect from somewhere that knows what it's doing. Whether you're meeting friends for a drink after work or settling in for dinner, it doesn't feel like you're performing Oxford for anyone.