The Oarsman

Marlow's Drink-First Dining Room

Marlow is a town that takes its restaurants seriously, and 46 Spittal Street is one of the more considered addresses in that conversation. The Oarsman occupies a roomy pub building with several distinct spaces: a dark-hued bar for casual drinking, a cosier snug for something quieter, and a well-proportioned dining room with a large serving hatch and views onto a small terrace. The rowing references are there if you look for them — a little wooden dinghy by the side entrance, a vintage Boat Race advertisement or two — but they're incidental. What the room actually communicates, once you're inside, is that drink matters here in a way it doesn't at most gastropubs of comparable size.

That framing matters because The Oarsman sits in a town with no shortage of places to eat well. Marlow's dining scene has been shaped partly by proximity to London and partly by genuine local ambition, and prices across the town reflect both. What separates the Oarsman from several of its neighbours isn't the food alone , though that's consistently strong , but the seriousness applied to what's in the glass. For readers familiar with our full Marlow restaurants guide, the Oarsman represents the town's drink-led tier rather than its chef-tasting-menu bracket.

A Wine Programme Built Around Conviction

The list runs to 300 bottles. That number alone would be notable for a town-centre pub; what makes it editorially significant is how those bottles are organised and where they come from. Rather than the standard regional breakdown , France, Italy, New World , the Oarsman arranges its selections by style, with categories like 'Amber Revolution' for skin-contact wines sitting alongside more conventional geography. Coverage spans more than 40 countries, with a strong lean toward organic and biodynamic producers. The emphasis is on the kind of grower-focused, lower-intervention bottles that have moved from specialist-wine-bar territory into broader circulation over the past decade, though the Oarsman has been making this case for long enough that it reads as conviction rather than trend-chasing.

The fizz section is worth particular attention. It includes Harrow and Hope Brut Reserve No 7, produced by a producer based in Marlow itself , a hyperlocal choice that reflects the list's curatorial logic rather than any obvious commercial motive. Fine sherries also appear, which in a British pub context still signals something about the seriousness of the buyer. The approach sits in a different register to the technical cocktail programmes at places like 69 Colebrooke Row in London or Schofield's in Manchester, but shares the same underlying principle: drink choices made from a point of view rather than for the sake of volume.

Ciders extend the programme beyond wine. Normandy and Herefordshire producers both feature, which is a useful shorthand for a buyer who takes fermented apple as seriously as fermented grape. An eclectic spirits range rounds things out. The overall effect is a drinks offering that would hold its own in a dedicated wine bar, which is not the default expectation when you walk into a pub in a Thames Valley market town.

The Food: Scottish Sensibility, Seasonal Execution

The kitchen operates under Scottish chef Scott Smith, whose background includes time at Arbutus and Wild Honey , two London restaurants that shaped a generation of cooks around seasonality, produce sourcing, and unfussy presentation. That lineage shows in the Oarsman's menu structure: three courses plus larder and bar snacks, with a rotation that changes frequently enough to reflect actual seasonal availability rather than a quarterly reprint.

Starters tend to be the kitchen's most precise work. A July salad of goat's curd with broad beans, peas, fresh fennel leaves, and chopped chives carried a lightness that suggested attention to balance rather than just assembly; toasted hazelnuts added texture without dominating. The winter menu shifts toward more substantial territory , pig's trotters and bacon on beef-dripping toast signals a willingness to commit to richer, older-fashioned British pub food when the season calls for it. Both approaches reflect the same underlying discipline: ingredients chosen for their moment, not their photogenic appeal.

Main courses show similar craft. Braised lamb neck arrives in an iron casserole with baby turnips, courgettes, lightly pickled onions, a jug of gravy, and small mounds of puréed aubergine and garlicky parsley on the plate. The presentation is generous without being showy. Desserts carry a Scottish streak: Ecclefechan tart, a Borders speciality with a moist, dense character not far from Christmas pudding, was accompanied by Bonnet goat's cheese, served on the side. Menu choices like this suggest a kitchen interested in regional identity rather than safe crowd-pleasers.

A chef's residency above the pub launched in September 2024, hosted by Simon Bonwick, formerly of the Dew Drop Inn. This kind of solo residency format has been gaining traction across the UK as a lower-risk route for chefs stepping out from established kitchens , it adds a second, separate dining dimension to the building without restructuring what the Oarsman already does well.

Where It Sits in the Broader Picture

Across the UK, the bistropub category has become increasingly difficult to execute well. The format promises the informality of a pub with the food quality of a restaurant, but too often delivers neither convincingly. The Oarsman avoids that trap partly because of the drink programme , a serious wine list gives a venue an identity that food alone often can't sustain , and partly because the kitchen commits to a style rather than hedging toward something safe.

The peer comparison isn't direct. In drink terms, the Oarsman has more in common with destination wine bars like Bramble in Edinburgh or L'Atelier Du Vin in Brighton than with most gastropubs. In food terms, the Scottish-led seasonal menu and regional dessert choices place it in the more considered end of the country cooking tradition , closer to somewhere like Digby Chick in its commitment to provenance than to London-adjacent brasserie cooking. The combination is what makes it worth the specific detour from London, roughly 35 miles west along the A404.

Prices land at the higher end of Marlow's already refined range, which in itself positions the Oarsman against local competition rather than the broader UK gastropub average. That's a fair reading: the wine list alone warrants a price premium over houses running standard on-trade selections. Whether the food prices feel proportionate will depend on ordering approach , the larder snacks and bar menu offer an accessible route in, while three full courses with wine will reach figures comparable to a mid-range London restaurant.

Planning Your Visit

The Oarsman sits at 46 Spittal Street in Marlow town centre, within walking distance of the high street and the Thames. Marlow is accessible by rail via Maidenhead with a change onto the branch line, or by road from the M4. Given the depth of the wine list, the logical approach is to treat this as a slow evening rather than a quick dinner , the 300-bottle list rewards browsing, and the room layout (bar, snug, dining room) means there's a format to suit different group sizes and levels of formality.

For drinkers who want to benchmark the Oarsman's approach against other destination wine and cocktail programmes, the comparison set is genuinely varied: Merchant Hotel in Belfast, Avon Gorge by Hotel du Vin in Bristol, Horseshoe Bar in Glasgow, Harbour View and Fraggle Rock Bar in Bryher, Mojo Leeds, and Bar Leather Apron in Honolulu each represent a distinct approach to drink-led hospitality. The Oarsman's argument is for the format where wine knowledge and pub comfort coexist , a smaller niche than it should be.