Remember Old Orleans, reviewed in this column not so long ago? Well, remember has become the operative word, Old Orleans have gone the way of the dodo. I’m actually rather pleased about this. Firstly, it was a rather rubbish bar and restaurant, and secondly I have some bad memories of being mocked by some tall, annoyingly attractive douche bags while having a drink there during my Oxford interviews. Thirdly though, I’m pleased because it vindicates me. All three of the lowest scoring restaurants I’ve rated on Ferretfood have now gone out of business. The Fox and Hounds was boarded up a couple of months after I went there, and now looks likely to be demolished to make way for a Tesco Metro. Oisi Master ran on for a while, until I passed it one day to find signs from the City Council up on the window saying that it had been closed following failed hygiene inspections and ‘involvement in a serious public health incident’. Old Orleans was the last to fall, although I have to say I missed its closing entirely. Having not been down George Street for a while, I was rather shocked to see Old Orleans gone, and a rather shiny new pizza place taking its place – Fire and Stone. From that moment, Fire and Stone had an appointment with my pen, by way of my stomach.

Fire and Stone

Threeways House
28-38 George Street
Oxford
OX1 2BJ

I had:

1 x Bruschetta
1 x New York Pizza
1 x Diet Coke

Total price: About £18

Food

Fire and Stone describes its pizzas as “different”. For those with less of an eye for marketing, a more appropriate adjective might be “novelty”. Pizzas with duck and hoi sin sauce, potatoes, walnuts, curry, sweet potato and so and so on make appearances. That which I had, the New York, contained (as well as the traditional mozzarella and tomato), cubed roast potato and bacon, sour cream, and red onion chutney. There are of course more conventional pizzas, but their presence on the menu is so limited that it’s clear the objective here is to eat something unusual.

I went for the New York pizza because it was suitably unusual, but not totally crazy. I wanted to see if they could make a reasonably nice pizza while sticking to their mission statement of bizarreness. They couldn’t quite succeed, sadly. The potatoes made the whole pizza into a rather bland affair, overwhelming the cheese, bacon and tomato. The chutney was, in that light, necessary to add excitement, but it added nothing to the pizza-ness of the event. I have no idea what they were thinking with the sour cream. The end result was something that was not inedible, but simply dull. A chore to eat. I get the impression the designers of the menu came up with whacky novelty ideas first, then tried to make them into pizzas. As far as I’m concerned that’s getting things the wrong way around – you decide on a meal that tastes nice, then go with it even if it’s novelty, you don’t just do something weird to look special and different.

The starter I had was actually much better – a really nice bruschetta. It makes me wonder if the conventional pizzas Fire and Stone do are in fact really nice. If so it’s a shame they're wasting their talents. I have to say though, for all I was disappointed by my pizza, I will probably go to Fire and Stone again for the food. Their pizzas are so different that I have to accept the possibility that mine was simply an aberrant combination, and many of their creations may be nice. When and if I do, I’ll try to post an update here.

In the meantime, Fire and Stone gets 13 out of 30 for food.

Ambience

Fire and Stone is prettier and more pleasant than Old Orleans in the same way a prancing deer is prettier and more pleasant than maggot-riddled road kill on the A40. It’s modern, clean, and has nice, dark-ish booths into which you and your companions can withdraw yourself and imagine you’re plotting revolution. There’s something quite London-y about the whole affair, which will be nice if you’re into that sort of thing, and not if you prefer something half-timbered with an illiberal attitude to foreigners. All of that having been said, there is nevertheless nothing especially inspired about Fire and Stone – no ‘wow’ factor. That and George St is one of those ugly carbuncles that have developed in a few places in central Oxford, and would best be knocked down and begun again. Those things somehow serve to leave me uninspired by Fire and Stone, and unlikely to remember fondly my being there. Ambience alone is certainly not enough to draw you in.

Ambience 18 out of 30

Service

Service in Fire and Stone was extremely good – swift, efficient, and polite. They even delivered our main course at the same instant they cleared our starters, which I rather liked. The waitress was also rather pretty and had a nice smile, which shouldn’t really count for much in restaurants but in fact always does.

Service gets 17 out of 20

Drinks

Drinks in Fire and Stone are much the same as you’d get in Ask, Bella Pasta, Pizza Express or any of their ilk. Wine. Acceptable. Beers. Acceptable. Soft drinks. Acceptable. Yawn. Still, I can’t punish them for being acceptable I suppose.

Drinks 6 out of 10

Price

£10. £10 for a pizza. What the hell, Fire and Stone? Are you going to deliver it to my house? No? Is it the best pizza ever? No? Is it fucking enormous? No? I can only describe the pricing structure at Fire and Stone as pretentious – it’s as if they imagined novelty pizza equalled quality pizza, and priced them according to their imaginings. I’m not impressed – it would take really, really good food to deserve the prices on display, and Fire and Stone just doesn’t live up to it.

Price gets 3 out of 10

That gives an overall score of:

57%

Not exactly spectacular, you but the novelty might draw you to Fire and Stone at least once. At least once but probably only once though – the food isn’t good enough to really draw you back, and the price is scandalous.