Bib of the Month: The Yurt at Nicholsons, North Aston

For our latest Bib of the Month, we’re heading to Oxfordshire and The Yurt at Nicholsons. A delightful spot at the edge of the Cotswolds, situated within a tastefully designed yurt, the restaurant forms part of the wider Nicholsons gardening and ecology business, which includes garden design services and the Rosara plant centre and homeware shop. Here, an Inspector explains why The Yurt restaurant is such a success.

“I can’t think of many better places for lunch on a sunny day than The Yurt at Nicholsons. A distinctive and charming restaurant, the yurt setting gives it a slight back-to-nature feel which is echoed in the ingredient-led cooking. As each refreshingly rustic and generously sized dish arrived, I liked the place more and more – with the kitchen’s skill and quality produce evident in the bold, satisfying flavours. The friendly team run the operation with such ease too.”

What was the idea behind The Yurt at Nicholsons and its unique setting?

Liz Nicholson: The Yurt at Nicholsons sits in the heart of our Rosara garden centre, in the sleepy village of North Aston, on the very eastern edge of the Cotswolds. Inspired by the fabulous food at Petersham Nurseries in Skye Gingell’s day, the setting gave us great ambition to deliver a unique dining experience.

Limited by planning and costs, the organic structure of a yurt seemed a romantic solution. The beautifully carved ash spindles coming to a point in the apex, like spokes on a wheel, have provided the most magical setting for us to be able to deliver a carefully considered sustainable menu over many years now. Our business ethos at Rosara is to take inspiration from nature and The Yurt celebrates food, farming and foraging, throughout the menu.

How would you describe your approach to food at The Yurt at Nicholsons?

Andrew Carr: I am completely guided by the seasons, celebrating nature’s harvest. I start with foraged ingredients and then consider the most local produce, forming strong relationships with all of my suppliers. We pick wild garlic, tender young nettle tops and hairy bittercress from the local hedgerows.

We have been supported by North Aston Farms which produce organic dairy products in their micro dairy and wonderful leafy salads from the farm, all year round. This friendship and collaboration is an example of all of our relationships in our supply chain. Our own kitchen garden supplements our supply with fresh herbs, exotic vegetables and bountiful quantities of rhubarb and fruits. Wheelbarrows groaning with quince are often seen parked outside The Yurt’s kitchen!

My style is ‘modern British with a nod to Mediterranean’, with flavours carefully combined with just enough complexity and never cluttered. Our dishes are innovative and creative – have you tried our Jerusalem artichoke ice cream? Divine.

What price range can customers expect and how are you able to keep your prices affordable?

Andrew Carr: Keeping the food miles low and celebrating local produce, including using secondary meat cuts and wasting nothing, we keep our pricing more affordable. Confit duck leg pastilla with smoked breast as a starter sits at £12; cider-cured Hampshire trout, crab bisque, celeriac, spinach and pommes Anna is £28; and top that off with a dark chocolate cremeux, salted caramel and hazelnut for £10, washed down with a glass of English award-winning Rathfinny Classic Cuvée.

In 2022, we introduced our set lunch menu in recognition of our position as a lunch-and-brunch-only venue with occasional evening events and supper clubs. We understood that to stand apart in the local area, we needed to offer something more elevated than the typical quick bite or standard garden centre fare and increase our restaurant's visibility and local profile.

With value at its heart, the menu changes every two weeks, allowing us to work more proactively with the seasons and produce availability, while allowing diners to experience our higher end à la carte dishes at a more accessible price point. It is currently priced at £27.50 for two courses and £32.50 for three.

Inspiration often comes from our close relationships with local suppliers. Our butcher may have excess speciality cuts that require a creative outlet, or we may utilise trimmings from other dishes to reduce waste or break down whole carcasses like the duck in our pastilla. We have also, for example, worked with retired ex-dairy cattle from North Aston Dairy in the village that we can buy in bulk when culled, as well as taken advantage of an abundance of line-caught fish offered by our fishmonger when market rates are favourable. This flexibility allows us to manage costs carefully while maintaining quality and delivering genuine value, whilst not being tied to overly long menu seasons.

Seasonality plays a defining role in the set menu. Locally foraged wild garlic becomes a key feature every March and April, appearing across multiple dishes – a wonderful ingredient that reflects our surroundings and, quite literally, costs us nothing but time to gather.

The restaurant is located within the wider Nicholsons development. What can guests expect from the rest of the business and how does it feed into the experience at The Yurt?

Liz Nicholson: Nicholsons is one of horticulture's best kept secrets. We have a substantial garden design and garden building business but our client base prefers to be very discreet and so you will rarely see us featured in the glossy garden magazines! Motivated by dedication to our clients and protecting climate and nature, the business offers ecosystem consultancy and is recognised as a leader in sustainable design, having developed ‘elemental’, the landscape-industry-wide design tool.

Our site at North Aston is the head office of our thriving business employing over 200 people who we collectively call ‘the green team’. As you enter the plant centre at Rosara, you will be immersed in a horticultural experience. We are proud that we were one of the first nurseries in the UK to go 100% peat free, more than 10 years ago, and one of the first nurseries to sign up to a scheme that protects bio security of the plants that we supply.

Offering a wonderful range of trees, hedges, screening plants and herbaceous plants, we pride ourselves on giving expert horticultural advice, however large or small the enquiry. Our plant centre is a place where we offer hospitality: we want people to come and chat and ask difficult horticultural questions. We want people to come and rest awhile, and we want people to feel at home.

What is the dish to order right now?

Andrew Carr: Well, I’m a Yorkshireman so I would suggest Yorkshire forced rhubarb tart, baked with North Aston Dairy cream and local Mayfield eggs, and of course flour from our local miller at Shipton Mill… welcome spring!

Where else in the area do you recommend guests explore?

Liz Nicholson: There is so much choice within a stone's throw of The Yurt. Soho Farmhouse lies 5 miles to the west and RH England’s flagship store sits in the stunning mansion of Aynhoe Park 5 miles to the north. The gem in the area for garden lovers is the ‘lost in time’ unspoilt garden at Rousham, 3 miles to the south. Shoppers can revel in Bicester Village 11 miles to the east and any visit to the area can be completed with a stomp around the world heritage parkland at Blenheim Palace, 7.5 miles away.

Hero Image: A colourful dish from Bib Gourmand-awarded The Yurt at Nicholsons, an affordable restaurant near the Cotswolds. © Inga Kebleryte/The Yurt at Nicholsons