Nearby was a fire pit big enough to cook an ox.
The food I cook at Ox is veg-driven, so it's nice sometimes to eat something different.
The menu at the 18th-century inn changes daily but a main course could be slow-cooked ox cheek with confit vitelotte potato, beetroot and curly kale, carrot and celeriac cooked on a custom-built French stove.
We dried a lot of blueberries in the autumn, rehydrated them with vinegars, which we often use as a seasoning instead of salt, and then turned that into a purée to go with slow-cooked ox cheeks.
An unlikely starter of slow-cooked ox cheek with beetroot gratin (£6.80) is another goody; the vegetable's sweetness a natural foil to the deeply meaty lobes of fork-tender cheek.
On the menu, trendy nose-to-tail dishes (slow-cooked ox cheek with bone marrow, toast and pickled walnuts), rub shoulders with a haggis toastie and soft quail's egg, a duck and green pepper corn hash, and a kimchee slaw pulled pork bun.
If I'm lunching, I go through to the back and watch the open kitchen prepare tortilla, chorizo in Welsh cider and ox cheeks cooked in fino.
Oakfield Place, Clifton, BS8 2BJ; 0117 332 3970; lidobristol.com The Ox, Bristol Steak, cooked in a charcoal oven, is the name of the game, but the rest of the menu – particularly the section titled Toast – is well worth exploring.
The Square, SY25 6JL; 01974 298208; ytalbot.com Ox, Belfast Seasonal food cooked well, with a particularly good value lunch menu (a starter of duck, fig, hazelnut and burnt onion is just £4). 1 Oxford St, BT1 3LA; 028 9031 4121; oxbelfast.com Mourne Seafood This local landmark's ethos is "fresh local seafood at an affordable price".
Low and slow Cheaper cuts of meat – lamb shoulder, pork belly, ox cheek, for example – have more connective tissue, so need to be cooked for longer.
