Something to celebrate - Banbury's new terrace restaurant promises a seasonal treat with six menus including a Christmas party selection

The restaurant is high up in the new Castle Quay Waterfront development serving the multiscreen cinema, The Light, shoppers and visitors. It adds a very different style of eating out to Banbury’s culinary scene.

It has a fantastic vibe – more metropolitan than the town has enjoyed before – with a great ambiance. With its retractable roof and windows, it is going to be a hugely popular summer eatery as well as being a welcoming all-seasons diner.

Its menus are varied and have something to suit everyone’s taste. I went along on Friday evening with a guest and we indulged ourselves in the sharers’ menu, exploring all sorts of flavours and food styles; nothing too heavy and all tasty and easy to eat.

We would have loved to try everything but enjoyed a good cross section from this menu (there are currently six menus to choose from, the sharers’, Sunday roasts, children’s, coffee and deserts, the terrace menu and the Christmas list – see here).

We said ‘cheers’ with a glass of chilled Sauvignon Blanc and started our meal off with tempura calamari with confit garlic oil, truffle and parmesan fries (absolutely yummy), with pan-fried seabass with samphire and a mango chutney glaze, and a trio of tacos (seabass, mango salsa and avocado cream / beer-braised pork with pink onions / pulled chipotle chicken) with an Asian slaw.

It is described as a large-style tapas menu so please don’t think we were stuffing ourselves outrageously!

We followed these tasty dishes with cauliflower, hummus, pomegranite and harissa, plus pan fried prawns with chorizo and torn toasted ciabatta. The meal was completed with a gorgeous zesty lemon meringue pie and some healthy sparkling water!

The icing on the cake was really polite, helpful, cheerful service from our waiter, Joshua - an incredibly hard-working graduate who gave us fantastic care. Nothing was too much trouble for him.

The Greenhouse offers a carefully curated, three-course festive menu, with dishes containing luxurious seasonal ingredients, suitable for small get-togethers or larger parties. The Christmas menu includes three courses for £39.95, including coffee and chocolates and is available until December 24.