Bignell Park Hotel, Bicester

Chesterton,
Nr Bicester OX26 1UE Map

http://www.bignellparkhotel.co.uk/

I stayed at the Bignell Park Hotel for a few days for work earlier this week. The hotel itself is okay, the staff are a bit grumpy, but the rooms are spacious and clean.

The restaurant boasts an AA Rosette and the food isn't bad at all. The restaurant somehow manages to have no atmosphere and I can only put this down to the wooden floor, tables, and high ceiling that manages to give it a feeling of a really unloved pub. It's odd, because for breakfast they put white cloths on the tables that makes it so much better, but these are removed for dinner service and you eat off of plain wooden tables.

The food, however, is very good. They have a separate vegetarian menu with three or four choices for each course. I stayed for two nights so was able to sample a couple of dishes which were pretty good.

The highlight of the main courses was a homemade wild mushroom flan with a white wine sauce. It was very nice and had plenty of mushrooms, which suited me down to the ground. It was served with a selection of vegetables and presented very nicely. The best dessert I had was a Panettone Bread and Butter pudding which was superb - very light and extremely tasty.

The breakfasts were good, consisting of a selection of cereals, croissants etc followed by a cooked breakfast. My favourite was a mushroom and cheese omelette that came with oodles of mushrooms, so that set me up for the day nicely.

Although the overall hotel service wasn't that friendly (although it wasn't unfriendly - just nothing special) if you're in the Oxford area, you could do worse than stay at Bignell Park.