I’ve been desperate to escape the claustrophobia of working from home recently. Last week, it was a day trip to the Isle of Wight for reasonably priced seafood at The Hut. This week, it’s posh pub grub in a sleepy Surrey suburb. The Victoria in Oxshott actually has a lot in common with The Hut: at first, it seems like just another ostentatious destination restaurant, this time in a very British village where the average house price is no less than £2m. It also takes just as long to drive to Surrey from the northernmost end of the Piccadilly line as it does to take a train to Southampton and cross the Solent. But, like The Hut, my snobbery turns out to be at least a little misplaced. A Sunday road trip out of London, my boyfriend and 10-month-old puppy in tow, for a spot of lunch and a countryside stroll is just the panacea for soul-sapping city life.
The fact is, The Victoria is quite lovely. This has as much to do with the locale, charming staff and balmy weather on the day, as it does the food, which is seasonal, local and all those good things. Taking a stroll around Oxshott is a bit like nonchalantly flipping through a mansion catalogue for the absurdly wealthy – I won’t embarrass myself by attempting to name a single footballer but a fair few of them have apparently set up shop here, as has the Crown Estate. Any impending imposter syndrome quickly abates once we arrive, though. The staff are welcoming and friendly – more than you’d expect for somewhere that was literally dubbed the “most expensive village in England” – and escort us to a quiet corner where we sit and quietly watch the Oxshott elite go about their Sundays like the well-behaved riff raff that we are, half expecting a B-list celeb to pop in.
