The Oak

Delicious, fresh food and reasonable prices combined with great service and nice ambience make me go back again and again.

I went to the Oak in Dec’15 with some friends for drinks upstairs and ended up staying for dinner downstairs. The cocktails were pretty terrible — I had a dirty martini and it was possibly the worst I’ve ever had. Why 5 stars? The dinner post drinks completely made up for the bad drinks. I didn’t have super high expectations but I was blown away — this is more than pub food! I shared the veal ragu and diavola pizza with a friend. Let’s start with the ragu — the best I’ve ever had. The sauce was meaty and rich with the flavor of truffle pushing it over the edge of greatness. The pasta was fresh and seemed homemade (not sure if its made in house or not…) oh my. The pizza wasn’t the star but was still amazing. Thin crust, crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, cooked perfectly. The toppings were high quality and flavorful. I will be visiting The Oak again on my next trip to London.

Many restaurants in Knottinghill close very early for dinner which has proven difficult for me and my friends (we’re in our mid-​twenties.) Oak gladly welcomed us in when their kitchen was closing in 5 minutes with no questions! Being gluten free my options were limited but I still was able to get a small app of scallops and chorizo which was good. Overall, the service was amazing and even being limited the food was delicious. The atmosphere was fantastic, as were the decorations.

I was invited to The Oak to celebrate my friends Birthday on Saturday and I had an amazing evening there. We started the night in the restaurant downstairs and later on continued the party in the upstairs bar. We were welcomed to the restaurant very politely and the staff was very accommodating with our table requests. Just so you know they don’t take reservations so show up early or get ready to wait for a table as this place is always full. And no wonder, because the service and food is outstanding. I ordered the Seafood Risotto and had a glass of Prosecco — an absolutely delicious combination. I was told that the pizzas in this place are exquisite and from the little tastes I got from my friends, I have to agree with that. Next time I’m definitely getting my own slices. The dining room looks beautiful and has a really nice atmosphere. After dinner we moved to the upstairs bar which was a nice surprise. To me it has feel of a private members bar to be honest. Very elegant and nice, but still relaxed. I loved it. So all and all I had pretty close to a perfect experience at The Oak and I highly recommend this Bayswater gem to you all.

This review is for the upstairs pub. I visited around 8:00 pm midweek and it had a nice vibe — moderately busy but not crowded. The clientele appeared to be mostly local residents with a Continental flavor. The décor is comfy, and my other half and I enjoyed our wine on one of the sofas. The drinks menu has a good range and I look forward to my next visit — likely for dinner.

Crowded, full of non-​English speaking Europeans, everyone was checking each other out, lots of obnoxious pushing at the bar. Not my scene really but I did hear that the restaurant on the ground floor was quite good. Didn’t have a reservation and wasn’t willing to wait an hour for a table so I didn’t get a chance to dine here. In other words, I can only comment on the bar.
Not sure if I would visit again but it’s good to know of an option in this neighborhood.

lieu superbe — grand, spacieux et classe au rez-​de-​chaussée /​intime et toujours aussi classe au 1er étage (n’y sont servis que des tapas +table pour les grands dîners privés).
les pizzas sont très bonnes, vraiment. bons produits frais, la pâte est fine, pas trop grasses… rarement mangé d’aussi bonnes pizzas.
j’aurais mis 5* si (et c’est là tout le subjectif de l’exercice) on n’avait pas eu à côté de nous un jeune couple dans la nana américaine parlait comme les Américains savent parler: hyper fort, hyper mal et d’argent tout le repas. on aurait peut-​être dû changer de place mais ce genre d’histoire peut pourrir un diner. bon, je mets quand même 4*.

Things to note:
1. This is an Italian restaurant masquerading as a pub
2. I had the best ragu OF MY LIFE here. The venison one. I honestly can’t stop thinking about it
3. The pasta is handmade and is delicious
4. My friend had a roast and said it was amazing
With all that; service is bloody awful. But honestly, see points 1 – 4. I didn’t even care.
It’s pretty pricey, but for food that good, I’m happy to pay and ask for everything twice!

I idly wonder how many pubs in London are called The Oak?
When I had a hankering for pizza this weekend, my friend suggested we meet here. I expected some old man pub with a pizza pop up or residency, but no, it’s a proper fancy ‘gastropub’. With actual linen napkins and table service. Basically it’s a restaurant with a pub-​room upstairs.
We settled in and ordered some wine, the cheapest small glass of red was £4.75. It’s very much Italian inspired with delicious looking antipasti plates and salads. Being poor, I skipped straight for the pizza. Huge rounds of doughy cheese and meat were flying by. My sister went for the proscuitto, rocket and olives and I split the Bianco with her. Mine was the best, decadent goats cheese, mozarella, truffle oil, caramelised onion and porcini. I’m hungry just thinking about it. I think that £13 is pretty reasonable for a pizza but I still dropped about £30 here. A little more than I would like.
I’d definitely come back. It’s a quality place.

Came here with a friend from out of town after I read a blog post about it on The Londoner… so glad I did! The restaurant is very cute (dim lighting, wooden tables, candlelight) and the food is amazing. Breakdown here:
Burrata w/​prosciutto — UNREAL. The star of dinner for sure. The best burrata I have ever had, served with great ham and yummy bread.
Quail — I’d never had quail before, and I really liked this! The pureed beets were very yummy.
Montana pizza — I personally wasn’t a fan of the crazy amounts of mushrooms, but once I’d picked a few off I loved it, really nice flavor from the tomato sauce.
Chocolate brownie with custard cream — OMG. The perfect brownie.
Tip: they don’t take dinner reservations for parties under 10, so get here early or be prepared to queue!

I’m confused about why this is classified as a gastro pub. The main features on the menu are pizzas, and while there is some meat and fish, i think primarily it would be classified as a upmarket pizza place with italian influences (charcuterie platters and some pastas). The restaurant doesn’t even have a pub feel to it… anyway, moving on…
I have been here 5+ times in the last few months. Have never made a reso but have only come with one other person. Have waited 45 minutes once but as long as you plan on drinking, it was fine, as the hostess came upstairs to get us from the bar. The bar is a really pleasant place to wait so that was not a problem. Also came at 7pm on Thursday and got a seat immediately. Seems to get busy around 8. Would recommend it as a good date spot as long as you had a reso. May be awkward if you ended up having to wait quite a while unless you know your date well already!
It does get expensive here and including a bottle of wine, dinner for 2 will be around 100 pounds. That also includes dessert. Have had the banana cheese cake twice now and will definitely be indulging again. I always get the proscuitto pizza — got the margarita once and it was too plain. Have had starters once (chorizo sausages, garlic bread and buratta) but felt they were a bit of a waste of money. The main event was the pizza and i’ll be sticking to that when I inevitably go back to the Oak.

Glad I did a Qype search when I was in the area. What a gem!
The food was delicious and as many Qypers have said the pizza was divine. I had a bianco with rocket, goats cheese and truffle oil. Just the best. My friend had black risotto with squid, faultless and again so tasty.
We shared a starter and dessert, two mains and a bottle of wine, came to £80. Great value for the quality, and I am defiantly going back.
We got there quite early, and managed to get a table, but if you are going at normal meal times, I would book, it gets very busy.

Definitely my go-​to local date spot. I love how dark and cozy they make this high-​ceilinged, little, corner pub. The seating is good and jammed together, which lends to the atmosphere as well. And the food is just as great as the ambiance.
On our last Friday evening visit, we dined on olives, goat cheese and beetroot salad, and the amazing Toscano pizza (Italian sausage or porcinis). They were even nice enough to make it sans mushrooms, since the hubs is not a fan. The crust was blistered to perfection, and the cheese-​to-​sauce ratio was just right. For dessert we had the orange-​liqueur-​accented panna cotta – some of the best I’ve tasted. With a nice bottle of red and the usual add-​ins, the bill came to 90gbp. Not cheap, but a lovely dinner out.

Mmmhmmm. Pizza. I love pizza. I think it’s just the perfect combination of crispy toasted bread, rich cheeses, spicy meats, and full flavoured sauces. Oh and the occasional veggie in the form of onions and mushrooms.
We wandered by the Oak one sunny Sunday on our way to another pub for a roast. However, the big oaken table outside was too good to pass up so we plonked ourselves down and took a look at the menu.
At first glance, the Oak looks like a place that takes itself a bit too seriously as a gourmet gastropub. The menu has all the fancy dishes but more to the point the soft drinks are heavy on name and light on substance. The Cool Ginger Beer (no kidding…“Cool” was part of the name) was missing a crucial ingredient… ginger. So I wasn’t impressed and it didn’t help that the waitstaff too about 30 minutes just to take our order and another 15 – 20 minutes to bring the drinks to us.
The pizza almost made up to it as it was fantastic. We ordered a selection to share among the 6 of us. Our choices were: Diavolo, Gustosa (a Diavolo plus roasted red peppers and blue cheese), Parma ham and parmesan, and something else apparently unmemorable. The Gustosa was absolutely fantastic with heat from the spicy salami going perfectly with the rich sharp tastes of the blue cheese. The simple thin crusts were also baked just right and maintained its crispiness despite the heavy amounts of sauce covering it.
Let’s see. Price wise it’s a bit expensive with the Ginger Beers being about 4 quid apiece and pizzas at 13 each. For a light pub lunch (4 pizzas among 6 were enough to kill the hunger but not completely satisfy it) it came to around 15 each which wasn’t bad but more than expected. Luckily its a short walk away from Ottolenghi so I wasn’t complaining I had space in my belly!

Really like this place. The food was light, delicious and a great value. They serve pizzas, pastas and other Italian dishes. I had a tagliatelle ragu and it was fantastic. Even the grilled tuna dishes had interesting and delicious sides.
The place is always pretty busy so I suggest you book a table. The décor is also very welcoming with small table and rustic oak booths. This place is unpretentious and great for a casual meal.

Came here at about 21:00 on a Saturday night with the special lady. Overall we had a fantastic time. On a busy evening we got a table within about 20 minutes. The wait time was enjoyable, though, as it allowed us to take in the upstairs bar, which is at once eclectic and posh. The Oak doesn’t seem to have any drink specialty but does seem to cover most of the bases well. (Although, they have only three beers, all of them pale lagers.) We got a bottle of sauvignon blanc and had less than ¹⁄₃ of it before we were called downstairs by Sean, the gregarious host who alway seemed really on his game.
Dinner was delicious. We had a squid starter which some salad leaves and grilled veggies mixed in. For the mains I had pan-​seared tuna with rocket salad and grilled veggies; the lady had pan-​fried cod with potatoes and asparagus and a few other goodies mixed in that I can’t remember. For dessert we shared a crème brûlée. All the food was high quality, very good tasting, well prepared and well presented.
The ambience of The Oak is quite nice. With tables lit by candlelight there is that glow about the place. On the Saturday night we visited there was a palpable buzz about the place, an energy borne by many people enjoying themselves. There is quite a bit of seating both indoors and out, which could accomodates groups ranging from two to maybe eight or so. After a slow start — we had to get the attention of our waitperson inititally — the waitstaff proved efficient and pleasant.
All told we had a wonderful experience. The Oak is something like ‘Upscale Casual’ it its vibe and fare, and I would say the prices fall neatly into this model, perhaps emphasizing the upscale aspect. Our meal came to about £80 (£25 for the wine, £8 for the starter, appx. £16 each for the mains, £6 for dessert and £1.75 for a macchiato. Then some service charge.) So obviously not a cheap meal this time, but one could come here and get less expensive booze and a pizza and spend less than £30 for two people.
For anyone seeking a good meal and a great atmosphere, I highly recommend the Oak.

crap — how did i spend more than £100 for pizza in a pub?
I guess it was the temptation to try a bit of everything. A pizza, a starter, an appetiser, a dessert, a beer, a wine and a dessert wine. And that was just me. I was buying for two more as well.
But still, I think a three person meal of pizzas in a pub coming to triple figures is a bit of a shocker. That says it all. This place is certainly not a pub or pizza restaurant, and not a gastropub either (if you serve pizza then you can’t be). Instead it’s an old pub redone as a nouveau Italian restaurant to attract the wealthy and beautiful Notting Hill crowd.
I personally didn’t think the food was all that bad — the pâté was damn good, the pizza so-​so — but I’m dropping a star or two because its superoverpriced for what it is. If you’ve ever cooked one at home then £13.50 for a pizza is surely taking the piss.
Very Notting Hill

i was here a few weekends back to celebrate a gal pals birthday. she had picked the spot as she’d been before and was close proximity to her flat. we wanted to hit upstairs, but the security said it was full at teh mo. he was a sweetheart and told us it would be a 10 minute wait for us as it was for a brithday. when we got up there a table wasn’t available because the gents the security guy thought were leaving weren’t. we ended up cramming 5 of us around a cocktail table. the guys seemed to be fine with exchanging spots until a another group took over the other half of their table. denied!
in any case, we enjoyed ourselves. i got my standard gin fizz. we ordered a bit of nibbles which i can’t remember anymore. there was cheese, calamari and something fried. all in all a great atmosphere for drinks. the nibbles were alright but obviously not memorable. so three star for décor, drinks and attempted service, but minus points for some clientele.

Best pizza in West London? More than likely.
Wonderful for dinner any day of the week, seeing as all the food is 100% wonderful to amazing. Extensive wine list, and great cocktails to be had in the cocktail bar upstairs (a sexy place to be on the weekend). Love this
has a winning formula! Yes it is a little pricey, but it is worth it.
Food: Wonderful
Wine list: Exquisite
Deserts: Perfect
Manager: Just AmazingLOVE him.
Catch my drift yet?

Down stairs: 4 stars
Upstairs: 5 stars
Downstairs: The food was good, mix of wooden oven pizza and modern European (but casual). The ambiance was very inviting and favored small groups more so than dates.
Upstairs: BOOM! This space was awesome… Jeffersonian era busts, eclectic furniture and a great common space perfect for hosting dinner parties.

This is lurvely… great atmosphere + yummy food gives a winning combination… also order the scallops there were LOADS of them!