The Troublesome Lodger

A Discreet Door on Spittal Street

A left-hand door beside the Oarsman pub on Spittal Street, easy to walk past on a Tuesday, marks the entry point to one of Marlow's more quietly discussed dining arrangements. The staircase leads to an oak-panelled first-floor room hung with the chef's own paintings — the kind of detail that signals a genuinely personal project rather than a designed-for-Instagram dining room. Centre stage is a single grand table, set with three small olive shrubs, where up to twelve guests share the same surface and, depending on how the evening unfocks, the same conversation.

Marlow already carries a higher-than-average dining density for a Thames-side market town. The presence of Hand and Flowers and The Coach has established the town on the national dining map, and venues like Sindhu, Compleat Angler, and Danesfield House round out a scene that punches well above what most towns of this size can sustain. The Troublesome Lodger occupies a completely different register: not a restaurant with a conventional front-of-house operation, but a residency format where the boundaries between dining room, studio, and private supper club blur deliberately.

The Collaboration at the Heart of the Evening

The format that Simon Bonwick has settled into here — cooking alone while Savannah Baker manages everything from welcome to wine , reflects a working model that small-format dining in the UK has been refining for years. Where large-brigade restaurants distribute responsibility across departments, this kind of two-person operation compresses all the moving parts into a tight, legible collaboration. The quality or failure of an evening rests almost entirely on how well those two elements hold together.

Baker's role is not decorative. Guests who arrive expecting passive table service will find something closer to a hosted evening, with Baker pairing each course with a wine selection from the Oarsman's list and narrating the choices with the ease of someone who has genuinely thought about them. The £95 wine flight covers five glasses and is priced in line with what curated pairings cost at comparable small-format venues. For those who prefer to choose independently, the Oarsman's full list is available, with 500ml carafes providing a more affordable way into the cellar without committing to bottles.

This kind of front-of-house model , where the host also functions as sommelier , is more common in European supper-club formats and in cities like London where low-overhead dining has pushed creative operators toward stripped-back staffing. Seeing it applied in a market town setting, and applied this fluently, is genuinely notable. Comparable pairings of precision cooking with serious wine hosting at this scale can be found at L'Enclume in Cartmel or, at a very different price point, at Atomix in New York City , though the formats differ substantially in ambition and formality.

What the Kitchen Sends Out

The six-course menu that has emerged from Bonwick's residency prioritises execution and flavour intensity over novelty. This is a deliberate positioning, and worth understanding clearly: if you arrive expecting technical provocation of the kind associated with The Fat Duck in Bray or the analytical rigour of The Ledbury in London, the register here is different. The kitchen is working in a classical tradition that values comfort and satisfaction alongside craft.

The menu in its documented form opens with a pot of full-flavoured pork pâté topped with a sweetish jellied relish, a clean statement of intent. A Parmesan and saffron risotto followed , creamy, deeply cheesy, rice cooked to an accurate al dente , the kind of dish that is harder to execute well than its apparent simplicity suggests. A salmon main course, topped with sweet puréed tomato and served with mash, kept the same sensibility: ingredients handled cleanly, flavours clear. A Bleu d'Auvergne mousse, blended with walnuts and served beneath a wafer, provided the cheese course equivalent without lifting wholesale from convention. Dessert was an ultra-light chocolate fondant with a caramelised café crumb and dense vanilla ice cream, closing before a final plate of macarons.

Consistency of approach across these courses matters. This is not a menu that hedges or loses confidence midway. The cooking reflects someone working inside a clear aesthetic, and the aesthetic is holding. For context within fine dining at this ambition level, the price sits well below what comparable six-course formats charge at Moor Hall in Aughton, Gidleigh Park in Chagford, or Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Great Milton.

The Shared Table as Format

Sitting at a single large table with complete strangers is not incidental to the Troublesome Lodger experience; it is structural. The format introduces a social variable that neither the kitchen nor front-of-house can fully control, and that unpredictability is evidently accepted as part of the proposition. Some guests will find the communal arrangement the highlight of the evening. Others will tolerate it in exchange for the cooking. What it produces, almost inevitably, is a more memorable evening than a conventional two-leading in a standard restaurant room, for better or worse.

Within the UK dining scene, this kind of deliberate communal seating has precedents in supper club culture and in chef's table formats, but applying it as the primary seating arrangement for a £95-per-head tasting menu in a residency context is less common. It asks something of the guest, and the evenings that work leading are presumably those where the table's composition cooperates.

Planning Your Visit

The Troublesome Lodger operates Thursday through Sunday, four evenings per week, from the first floor of the Oarsman on Spittal Street (46 Spittal Street, Marlow, SL7 1DB). The room accommodates up to twelve guests, and with only four service nights per week, demand tends to outpace availability at short notice. Booking well ahead is advisable. The wine pairing is priced at £95 for five glasses; the full Oarsman list is available as an alternative, including 500ml carafes for more flexible consumption. Marlow is served by rail from London Paddington via Maidenhead, with the station a short walk from Spittal Street. For a fuller picture of what else the town offers, see our full Marlow restaurants guide, our full Marlow hotels guide, our full Marlow bars guide, our full Marlow wineries guide, and our full Marlow experiences guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I eat at The Troublesome Lodger?

The six-course menu is set rather than à la carte, so the question resolves itself on arrival. Based on the documented menu, the Parmesan and saffron risotto and the chocolate fondant with vanilla ice cream have drawn particular attention for the quality of their execution. The wine pairing at £95 for five glasses is worth serious consideration given that Baker's hosting is as much a part of the evening as the cooking itself.

Do they take walk-ins at The Troublesome Lodger?

Walk-ins are unlikely to find a place. The room holds no more than twelve guests, and with service running only four nights per week (Thursday to Sunday), seatings are finite. Marlow's dining scene already draws visitors from London and the wider Home Counties, and this particular format generates word-of-mouth demand that fills the table relatively quickly. Book ahead through the Oarsman.

Is The Troublesome Lodger a permanent restaurant or a temporary residency?

Simon Bonwick launched the project in 2024 as an indefinite residency above the Oarsman pub in Marlow, having previously been at the Dew Drop Inn nearby. The format is structured as a residency rather than a fixed restaurant, which means its continuation is tied to Bonwick's ongoing presence in the space. It operates on Thursday through Sunday evenings, seating up to twelve guests per service at a single shared table.