Parsonage Grill, Oxford: ‘A lazy approach to cooking’ – restaurant review

This pricey but forgettable Oxford establishment is a lesson in disappointment

Parsonage Grill, 1-3 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN (01865 310 210). Starters £8-£13, mains £17-£33, desserts £6.50-£8.50, Wines from £24

Behold, the Oxford chattering classes at play. To my right is a senior gentleman, being talked at by a chap who must be at least two years his junior. So far, he has ranged across the deep valleyed landscape of human atrocity: from the Armenian genocide to the situation in Gaza, with minor digressions into what Aristotle might have thought on the matter. The more elderly of the two leans in, as if cursing his functioning hearing aids, and says: “Perhaps we could move the conversation on to something rather cheerier.”