The Nosebag

Mum adores this place and we go every time we’re in Oxford. It’s rustic, cosy, and extremely homey, plus the fact that it’s a bit tucked away upstairs means it’s usually less busy.
After a whistlestop tour to show Boyfriend the sights we were pretty nibblish so went to grab food — you order at the counter, and they either hand it to you or deliver it to your table — it’s not always clear which way they’re going to go, so be sure to hang around if you don’t get a number (or just ask!). I got a baked potato with beans and cheese (because they just don’t make them in Canada), and roasted cauliflower soup. The baked potato was perfect — heaped with cheese and floating in beans, and I happily ate the entire thing. The soup was smooth, creamy, and very flavourful — I wish I could have finished it but I would definitely have exploded! I had a Cotswolds cider with it, which was very tasty, and a nice fresh accompaniment to the meal.
The Nosebag is cute and always a bit of a treat to come to.

A lofted hidden gem where you can get a hearty, quirky meal at good prices. The set-​up is kind of cafeteria style — pick up a tray and pick out your food, cakes/​scones, or beverages and either take them directly back to your seat, or bring a number with you for hot food to come out when it’s ready. I can only speak to dinner, but there a few options — soups with a humongous hunk of bread, assortment of salads or small dishes, and a more substantial «main» entrée that comes with a selection of several cold salads (i.e. wheatberries, potato salad, coleslaw, cabbage). The night we went, some of the options were haddock and sweetcorn hash with poached egg, risotto with «plenty of greens» and goat’s cheese. braised lamb with moroccan stew, roasted veg lasagne, on and on.
Things aren’t QUITE what you imagine but flavorful and delicious nonetheless: the poached egg on my haddock/​corn hash was actually fried and the opposite of runny. The risotto was something more like a shortgrain rice pilaf with a slice of goat’s cheese and hazelnuts laid over top. Whatever the dish really ends up being, you’ll walk away generally pleased with a satisfied tummy.

As a vegetarian in Oxford, this is a must. The Nosebag can be hard to find; when I lived there, I didn’t discover it until my last two weeks in town! The prices are affordable and the quality of food is good. I went during slightly off hours and had no trouble finding seating. I highly recommend it!

All too often overlooked as it’s down an alley rarely noticed! Usually its a friend who brings you hear and you pay it forward by introducing it to another friend. This place is fantastic for lunch, swinging between a rustic family lodging and an old-​fashioned family pub in terms of it’s interior. That being said, I believe it is dry and perfect to take the grandparents or the parents. I often come here for a girls only lunch as it has lots of salads, quiche, and vegetarian options. The baked potato is what is sounds like but you get a choice of fantastic salads.
My personal favorite? The creamy avocado chicken salad with cherry tomatoes! I would marry it if it were legal. The red cabbage and apple salad with sultanas was glorious as was the fruit salad. Next time I will be trying to special Mediterranean one with artichoke, olives, and what looked like balls of mozzarella. Honestly, I don’t think you could go wrong with anything here.
Some of the meat dishes are a bit pricey (£9−11) but the side salads make it worth it and there is a LOT of food in the end. I would wholeheartedly recommend it though going around peak lunch hour will stress you out if you are looking for a no-​effort place to sit. The place will be packed!

A fantastic place for lunch, servings are huge. Great bake potatoes, massive selection of fillings and shed loads of other food to choose from. Great if your a vegetarian and great if your not

The food is always good and menu varied.
The garlic bread is a must. I am a vegetarian and find the menu easy to order from with lots of choice.
The downside is that it can be overcrowded and you may end up sharing your table with other diners. Also the tables are a little slow to be cleared.

A friendly little sui generis restaurant on the first floor in the town centre with a rustic feel and a delicious, fresh, wide selection of food. Also a nice atmosphere with big bench tables in a low-​ceilinged room overlooking the street. Great for a bit of cake and a chat but especially for the savoury stuff. I love the massive slabs of quiche. They ask people not to save seats before buying food, but sometimes lone laptoppers cram up necessary tables with just an orange juice. You can often get somewhere to sit, though, and the food is fantastic.

The Nosebag is probably my favourite place to go for tea and cake in Oxford. It’s a small, unique place with lovely slighty rustic crockery. The cakes are great too, and there’s a wide range of salads and hot meals too. It’s stays open into the evening so a nice place for supper as well as lunch and afternoon tea.
It can get pretty busy round lunch time especially, but I’ve always managed to find somewhere to sit. Well worth a visit.

Like Sarah T. notes in her review, this place is a little hard to find, unless you already know about it and are on the lookout for it. Otherwise, it’s quite easy to miss. I came here today with Lauren H. for an early dinner and very much enjoyed the meal and the place.
The prices are affordable and they give you a LOT of food. I love bang for your buck! I ordered the salmon quiche for £6.95, and it comes with THREE salads! Great deal, eh? The salmon quiche was awesome, with TONS of salmon and very custardy. My salads — the greens, the beets, the slaw-​ish one — were also all very nice, light, and great complements to the meal. I didn’t try Lauren’s vegetarian lasagna, but she seemed to really enjoy it — it comes with lentils too!
The place is also very cute, and the upstairs dining room is, like Sarah T. describes, very woodsy. We sat by the window, and it was slightly darker. Great atmosphere. The whole place felt very Oxfordian to me, and I just wanted to whip out a nice big book and read right there and then.

If you’re vegan in Oxford, this is one of a few places that you can get a vegan cake. They don’t always have one but there often is — I like the one that is kind of like pear crumble. It may be called Pear Crumble Cake, I don’t remember!
The portions are very big and I can never manage the whole thing, but they are very wholesome. Perfect place to take your hippie mother, if (like myself) you have one.

The Nosebag has had a long tradition in Oxford for providing fairly healthy & vegetarian sustenance to passes by and it still holds true today. On offer is a changing menu of about 9 dishes (3 are solely vegetarian), and there is a large selection of tasty salads on offer to accompany a meal. As others have mention, it isn’t that cheap but it isn’t expensive either, for example: Roast vegetable ratatouille, and two salads served with a slice of garlic bread came to £7.85.
Apart from the main course they are many cakes and slices on offer that are apparently made on premisis and they were always of a fairly decent quality but I have not sampled them as of late.
What I find let’s the Nosebag down is the amount of bad seating areas — it’s always packed out and sometimes it can be very hard to find a seat. Be warned, if your looking to sit on your own (communal tables are installed here), or have to a quiet lunch this is defiantly not the place to do it! Lastly, there can also be few push chairs here at lunch time and in the afternoon, ergo meaning crying babies.

The Nosebag is just across the road from the famous Oxford Union and is generally far busier than its illustrious neighbour. The food isn’t cheap but it is tasty — if you’re into eating healthily or are a vegetarian, then this is a great place to go.
The Nosebag is cafeteria-​style — you choose what you want from a range of dishes that changes every day. There’s a great range of juices, salads, soups and hot dishes, and it’s particulary good if you’re after a nice sit-​down lunch.

I only knew about The Nosebag because I was brought there by a friend, and I suspect it must be the same for most people. The place just isn’t easy to find, and even if you stand right in front of it, you’re more likely to walk into Meltz or Makan La (the latter is the superior choice between the two). So you have to go upstairs to get to The Nosebag, where the self-​service style can be a bit intimidating on the first go.
What’s really important, though, is to get a seat first. There is no joy in getting your food and finding out you can only eat it standing, which is to say that you can’t eat it at all. Obviously this works best with at least one other person. The place gets packed during peak hours, and if you can’t find a seat, rest assured that you can always come back another time. That’s the price of delicious food at great prices.
My favourite is the vegetarian lasagna, which comes with giant, crunchy garlic bread. This is great even if you’re not vegetarian. The atmosphere feels very Oxford (lots of heavy wood), and the food feels very homemade. I tried to make it back on my last visit, but due to the timing and other people’s food preferences, we ended up at Meltz. Which isn’t bad per se, just not what I want to be eating when I only have a few days in Oxford.

As the other reviewers have said, the Nosebag has a reputation for big portions of healthy food. However, I would add: avoid eating here in the late afternoon, as the food isn’t quite as fresh and tasty.

The Nosebag is stuffed with well cooked home cooked food in a fabulous old building. Choose from a wide range of health food, top it off with a hot chocolate, coffee, or hot ribena, and marvellous cakes.
It is priced fairly and you can be assured of good quality food at all times.
Be warned — if you go there once, you’ll go back again and again! :)

This is a lovely little place that serves huge portions of very tasty and wholesome food. I love the pâté, the quiche and the huge selection of salads that they do in here. You can also get a lot of delicious hot food — chille con carne, beef in beer and a lovely range of soups have been some of my favourite specials.
You have to try the cakes too — there’s a huge range and I’ve never been disappointed in any of them. I love the chocolate fridge cake, the cheese scones and the cheesecakes.
Good value and very friendly service, an excellent place to nip in for a quick meal for great value. Many different drinks available too, top up on your vitamins with the jucies while you fill up with goodness!

If you are entertaining a visitor to Oxford I would take them to this café to experience the olde worlde atmosphere. It is a great place to dine on fresh (if slightly pricey) food, or just sit and chat over a hot beverage. Definitely one of the city centre’s gems.

This place has been around for a long, long time and is well known among Oxford people, fo having a great range of healthy foods, including hot food and salads. One of my favorites (because its low cost too), is the 3 or 5 salad plate. As the name suggests you can choose 3 or 5 salads for a deal price. Theres an excellent choice of very tasty and very healthy salads. Water’s free. The portions are big. Oxford students get a discount and the staff are friendly too and its a pretty good location to just hang out with friends for a cup of tea or bowl of soup.