Five Little Pigs

The Verdict

Five Little Pigs rewards a second visit more than most restaurants at its price point. The first time, you clock the Agatha Christie name, the clever room layout, and the sourcing story. The second time, you stop noticing the décor and start paying attention to what the kitchen is actually doing: highly technical small plates built on produce networks that most ££ restaurants in market towns don't bother to build. If you're considering it for the first time, book with confidence. If you've already been, the brunch offer on weekends gives you a genuinely different way back in. Either way, this is the most ambitious cooking you'll find in Wallingford, and it holds a Michelin Plate (2024 and 2025) to prove the point.

The Kitchen's Approach

What separates Five Little Pigs from the average neighbourhood restaurant is the sourcing architecture underpinning every plate. Bread comes from Lawlor's bakery in Henley-on-Thames. Coffee petit fours are sourced from Missing Bean, an Oxfordshire roaster. Fish arrives from the West Country: Brixham plaice, Cornish skate wing, chalk stream trout. Vegetables come, in part, from the gardens of neighbours who have space to spare — a genuinely local supply chain rather than a brochure claim about seasonality.

That discipline shows on the plate. Smaller dishes carry the most technical interest: kohlrabi croquettes with pickled carrot and coriander yoghurt, haggis Scotch eggs, fishcakes of chalk stream trout paired with pickled seaweed and smoked eel mayo. The last dish in particular shows a kitchen that understands how to use acidity and smoke together without letting either element dominate. Larger plates are more direct but still precise: pork belly with parsley salsa and butter beans, pavé of local rump steak with Cotswold Blue cheese and triple-cooked chips, West Country skate wing with blood-orange and fennel salsa and cavolo nero. The pairing logic is consistent throughout — every plate has a sharp, acidic, or fermented counterpoint doing structural work.

The all-day menu gives you flexibility that most restaurants at this level don't offer. Saturday and Sunday brunch is where the kitchen loosens up: toasties, spiced pumpkin pancakes, sugar-glazed bacon chops with fried bread and eggs, and shots of wild garlic Bloody Mary. Bottomless brunch is available for those who want it, which is a practical draw for groups who find formal tasting-menu formats too rigid.

The Room

The space is divided into three distinct areas: a brightly coloured front section that reads like a modern bistro, a central bar, and a rear zone with an open kitchen pass and cosy booths. The booths at the back are the booking to aim for , you get sight of the kitchen without noise from the front door. The bar in the centre works well for solo diners who want to eat at the counter rather than occupy a table alone. The overall atmosphere sits closer to relaxed neighbourhood bistro than formal destination restaurant, which means the Michelin recognition is a signal about cooking quality, not a warning to dress up.

Drinks

Owners created Wallingford Gin, and it anchors an all-local drinks programme that includes Oxfordshire ales, seasonal cocktails, and English wines from the nearby Hundred Hills vineyard. For those interested in regional producers, this is a more considered drinks list than you'd typically find at ££ pricing. The local gin range is broad enough to keep enthusiasts occupied through a full meal.

When to Go

Weekday lunches are the lower-pressure option if you want a quieter room and more attention from staff. Weekend brunch (Saturday and Sunday) is the highest-energy session and the most social format the restaurant offers , good for groups of three or four who want flexibility on pace and budget. If you're visiting specifically for the more technically ambitious small-plate cooking, a weekday evening gives you the full all-day menu without the brunch crowd. Spring and early summer are worth prioritising if the neighbour-grown vegetable supply is at its most varied, though the kitchen appears to adjust the menu to whatever produce is available, so there's no bad season to visit. Check availability directly , at ££ pricing in a market town, booking lead times here are considerably shorter than at destination restaurants like Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Great Milton or The Fat Duck in Bray.

Know Before You Go

How It Compares

Five Little Pigs sits in a different tier and geography to the comparison venues most frequently cited alongside Michelin-recognised modern British cooking. CORE by Clare Smyth, Moor Hall, and L'Enclume operate at ££££ with months-long booking queues and tasting-menu-only formats. Five Little Pigs gives you Michelin-acknowledged kitchen discipline at ££ pricing, with a flexible all-day menu and easy booking. If your priority is the most technically demanding cooking in the UK, look to those venues. If your priority is precision cooking with genuine local sourcing in a relaxed room you can actually get into, Five Little Pigs is the better practical choice.

Within the Oxfordshire and Thames Valley area, the closest relevant comparisons are destination restaurants that operate at a significantly higher price point: Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Great Milton and Hand and Flowers in Marlow both require more planning, larger budgets, and more formal commitment. Five Little Pigs fills a gap those venues don't: ambitious, sourcing-led modern cooking you can book on reasonable notice for a weeknight without a dress code or a fixed tasting menu.

For food explorers interested in how regional restaurants outside London handle local-produce briefs, Five Little Pigs compares well to places like hide and fox in Saltwood and Midsummer House in Cambridge , both of which operate at higher price points with more formal structures. The advantage here is price and accessibility; the trade-off is that you're not getting the same depth of tasting-menu architecture. That's a direct exchange for most diners in Wallingford.

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