It is a little known fact but the famous city of Oxford hosted a significant number of Belgian refugees during the First World War.
During WWI, these Belgian refugees in Oxford contributed to local industries, such as toy-making and the university press The famous Belgian fictional detective Hercule Poirot was created by Agatha Christie, partly inspired by the wave of Belgian refugees in Britain during the Great War.
Victorian-era figures, such as artist and poet William Morris, felt strong ties to Flanders, incorporating Flemish influences into their work.
These, and other equally off-the-radar links between the two places, make a visit here all the more enticing and fascinating for visitors from Belgium.
It’s also a fact that British, including many from the Oxford area, have long-standing historical links through the defence of Belgian neutrality, famously marked by the Battle of Waterloo (1815) and the Commonwealth war graves in Belgium.
Any visit to Oxford is not really complete without seeing the wonderful cathedral at Christ Church, one of over 30 colleges that comprise the world famous Oxford University.
Christ Church is located on St Aldates, an easy walk of no more than a few minutes from Oxford city centre. Said to be the most beautiful college in the city, the college “quadrangle” is the size of a football field, and the 12th-century cathedral is one of the most beautiful in the world. It owes its grandeur to the king of six wives, Henry VIII,
Although Christ Church attracts many thousands of visitors each year, it remains a working institution with a twofold purpose: the pursuit of learning and Cathedral worship. For almost 900 years this church has stood here as a place of worship and prayer. The Cathedral is a working building, with a dual role as the cathedral for the diocese of Oxford and the college’s chapel.
Public tours are available to see this wonderful chapel as well as other on-site places such as The Great Hall where students and senior members of the college dine, plus Tom Quad, the largest in Oxford, and Great Tom which is to Christ Church what Big Ben is to London.
But it is, arguably, the cathedral, not least its magnificent stained glass (including the first to be installed here for 130 years no less) that is the most memorable and it is here you’ll come across yet another direct link to Belgium: the banners and flags that, even while the war raged, were brought back to Oxford by two local regiments serving in WW1 near Ypres in Flanders.
The names of local men reported missing or dead in the war are also remembered in the chapel of remembrance.
Bountiful history can also be found on a tour of the nearby Oxford Castle and Prison where, possibly, the most surprising story belongs to a Belgian. It was on July 6, 1577 that one Roland Jencks, a Flemish bookbinder, was convicted for holding “radical religious” views. As a supporter of the Pope, he had also insulted the Protestant Queen. After spending three weeks with just rats for company in a cell, he was found guilty. Jencks erupted in anger and shouted a curse at the jury. The next day the 300 witnesses at his trial all dropped dead and Jencks was suspected of witchcraft. He escaped and returned to Flanders.
The “Jencks curse” turned out to be no legend. In 2004, archaeologists found a mass grave from that period. According to scientists, Jencks was a typhoid carrier and had fatally infected the entire courtroom.
After exploring the wonders of this fine city you may well have worked up an appetite and there is no better place to sate any hunger locally than Dishroom Permit Room, just a short walk from Christ Church.
The “permit rooms” are a slightly smaller, cosier take on Dishoom, a highly successful “chain” of excellent Indian restaurants in the UK which first opened in 2010 and are now scattered around the country. The permit rooms have a slightly smaller food menu but larger cocktails card.
The concept is the brainchild of Dishoom’s Indian-born owner who was generally fascinated by the culture and history of Mumbai’s Iranian-style cafes.
These, typically, serve small, tapas-style dishes, and are so popular (and relatively cheap) in India they can be found on many street corners in the bigger cities.
Permit rooms in India originated in the 1970s following the relaxation of strict prohibition laws, specifically in Bombay (now Mumbai). These spaces allowed individuals with authorized, medical-based permits to legally consume alcohol, evolving from the clandestine “Aunty Bars” of the 1949–1960s prohibition era. They became iconic, informal, and accessible drinking holes and a staple of social life, particularly in Mumbai, offering a casual, often male-dominated, venue for drinking beer or spirits.
Today, while some traditional, dimly lit permit rooms exist, the term has been modernized by contemporary restaurants, such as those by Dishoom, to evoke the nostalgia, culture, and cuisine of 1970s Bombay. It is good reason they are hailed as a tribute to 1970s Bombay,
The first permit room opened in Brighton in 2024, followed by Cambridge, then Oxford (there is one in London with a 5th due to open this month in Liverpool).
The manager at the Oxford venue is the very friendly and welcoming Richard Fernandes who was raised in Mumbai and moved to the UK in 2009. He explained that Dishooms normally gravitate to “thriving cities” and that is exactly what Oxford is.
He told this site, “The history of permit rooms is particularly interesting and it was this that appealed to the Dishoom owner.”
The Oxford “branch” is wonderfully evocative of the sort of café culture the Dishoom owner seemingly had in mind. The food really is great but that’s not all: every Thursday there is live music with a DJ and, if wall art is your thing, you’ll be intrigued by the lovely local and south Asian art adorning the walls here.
The menu is full of wonderful offerings, such as “chicken ruby”, tender chicken in a rich and silky Makhani sauce’ and “lamb Chettinad”, a fall-apart lamb in a seductive South-Indian coco sauce, spiced with pepper, chilli and curry leaf.
If (as with this writer) biryani is your thing, then try the “chicken berry Britannia” version here, comprising chicken, ginger, garlic, mint and rice cooked in the Kacchi style.
Another, equally tasty, dish is the “Prawn Moilee”, a curry of coco milk, turmeric, curry leaves and spices.
The Permit Room “special” here is a half or whole chicken tandoori (price depends on the size) which is not red (for a change) and grilled and served with fresh kachumber and tangy green chutney.
All are delightful as are the many other dishes on the card, including chaats and salads, sides and savouries. There is a great wine list and drinks, including from India.
From Portuguese pau to Parsi specialities, the savoury richness of Mughlai dishes to coco sweet Goan curries. All are ingredients that make up the food of Mumbai … and at Dishoom too.
The prices, considering the very high quality of the food here, are remarkably reasonable at this 126-seat all day bar/cafe and will not break the bank, a serious consideration for many in these economically-tight times. With the weather set to improve there are a few tables for outside dining.
Do not forget that they start early here so you might also like to consider popping by for a brill breakfast consisting, among much else, of steaming chai and drippy egg-filled nans.
The homepage says, “Damn good, all day” and that is an apt description.
Very commendably, the owners have a policy whereby for every meal purchased they donate a meal to a child who might otherwise go hungry. Two charities Dishoom works with, Magic Breakfast in the UK and the Akshaya Patra Foundation in India, provides nourishing free meals to kids and, to date, over 20million such meals have been provided.
“Dishoom breaks down barriers, just as the old Irani cafés of Bombay did,” said a company spokesman.
It also goes to some lengths to reduce its carbon footprint, support nature-based activities and is a certified B Corp (fuller details of this and all else are available via Dishoom’s quite splendid website).
Mumbai is a delicious melting pot, where cultures continually mingle and that is exactly what the Dishoom owners are trying to do in the UK, not least at Oxford whose permit room opened, just off a busy shopping street, in October 2024.It has proved a rip-roaring success ever since, for locals and the many visitors to the city.
Oxford has produced no less than 26 UK prime ministers—including Margaret Thatcher—and 46 Nobel Prize winners. Astronomers Stephen Hawking and Edmond Halley also attended school here, as did Rupert Murdoch and Oscar Wilde.
Unlike the castle and its Uni, Dishoom may be relatively new to Oxford but this fab resto is just one more excellent reason to pay a visit to what is a fine university city.
further info:
info@oxfordcastleandprison.co.uk
https://www.permitroom.co.uk/locations/oxford/
photo credit: Bitten Oxford
