Freud Cafe Bar in Oxford

There has never been a more closed place in existence. Don't get your hopes up.

Very rude staff and discriminatory behavior. Update: The reply below is probably for another indian person that day. We had our masks with us and there was no conversation about masks.

Nice venue, good drinks menu (though the drinks are pretty average). The service, however, is the worst I have found in Oxford. Appalling attitude from a couple of sour-faced, couldn’t-care-less bar staff, which really spoiled the experience.

beautiful place, worst aperol spritz ever. £9 for serving a very very poor drink!

We had out wedding party here and it was fantastic! Jemima and her team were so great on the night, I hope they had as much fun as us! Jemima did a fantastic job at helping us make decisions. For example how much recommended alcohol to pre-order, which was spot on as there was no waste. Freud is a great venue, It looked so beautiful, and the lighting was perfect which was organised through Core (recommend by Freud) The team were flexible, relaxed and their easy-going nature helped us remain calm throughout the whole planning experience and especially on the day. We would 100% recommend using Freud as a wedding venue and if we could do it all again we would!

Great ambience - the bar is in an old church building so the high ceilings and lights make for an amazing experience. There is an extensive cocktail list and all the ones I've tried so far have been well-made and reasonably priced. Reservations are usually not required, but the hours are a bit unpredictable due to event bookings. I would definitely recommend a visit here if you come across it when it's open!

Fantastic place. Big, airy, buzzy. Friendly staff.

A seriously cool place with great drinks and a nice vibe. Bonus points for having music at a volume that allows both dancing and conversation. I asked for a surprise mock tail twice and was very happy both times. The rest rooms are good but could have been cleaner. They seem to lack food or maybe the kitchen was just closed today.

Probably my new favourite bar in Oxford, staff were absolutely lovely (especially a guy called Sonny !) enjoyed my night out thoroughly 10/10 will be going again !!

This is the most wonderful place to spend time in. The atmosphere is amazing, the cocktails are delicious and the staff are a delight. Jemima, Sophie, Sonny and Ryan go out of their way to make everyone feel welcome. I will definitely visit again.

Always a happy experience. Soph and jemima particular delights. 🐶 Friendly

DO NOT VISIT! I visited Freud over the weekend and was disgusted by the venue, the drinks and above all - the staff. I was particularly appalled by the door staff who got a kick out of bullying the young women in our party.

I had the misfortune of visiting Freud Cafe Bar on Saturday night. We were University alumni continuing our evening following a reunion dinner. Only half the party was permitted entry, despite an unsurprisingly quiet venue. In an attempt to explain this irrational behaviour, the door staff proceeded to be nothing short of condescending, confrontational and childish, and impressively insulted the whole group, including an NHS junior doctor saying that they ‘didn’t look intelligent enough to be a doctor’. All this abhorrent behaviour was witnessed and encouraged by the general manager. We left as they chuckled between themselves having brought an NHS worker to tears and left the rest of the group feeling deflated. We enjoyed the rest of our evening at the OXO bar where we were warmly welcomed and accommodated. I wouldn’t wish anyone to feel the way we were made to feel on Saturday, and would therefore strongly discourage you from visiting this establishment and feeding the egos of the despicable staff.

Good venue for Lunar New Year ball.

Horrible quality of alcohol, only one wine and beer gave me a headache. Nice building though

Pretty cold atmosphere for Christmas days. The staff at the bar could potentially make better cocktails.

I can imagine this being a cool, unique place, but I can't in any conscience recommend it to anyone. The staff operates based on compete whim and your experience here might turn from the best ever to a horror story. If you read the reviews around here, this happens frequently, however polite, or generous your group may be, no matter if you prearrange with the bar or not. Just go support any other place in Oxford which actually cares about attracting people and providing them with a good experience.

£7.70 for a g&t. that’s ridiculous. grow up.

A great space to have cocktails

If you want the security to be condescending then come here. The website says it’s open until 2am…. Good luck getting in at 00:15….

Oxford in a glass. The sacred and the profane, all at once. With cake, I expect.

I walked in asked for a Diet Coke the lady behind the till refused to serve me a Diet Coke and she assumed I was drunk when I don’t drink at all this was tonight

Cool cocktail bar in old church. Atmospheric when busy

A very special place for a wedding reception. Only criticism is not much outside space.

Interior is great. Pricey though. Service can be a little snooty, largely dependent on who you get.

Always a good night here especially now the aggy door men have been removed 👍🤪

inept staff, discriminatory establishment

Great bar, lovely interior and friendly and helpful staff

Nice room Close to train station

Best scenographic for a cocktail in Oxford

Always make a point of visiting here when coming into Oxford , it’s a fantastic building with a great atmosphere and very enjoyable cocktails 😋 It really contributes to Walton Street area being a destination of choice what with all the great places to eat and get drinks.

Very good cocktails in a quirky (previously a church) bar.

Actually quite impressed by the ineptitude of the staff at responding to a simple booking request. Having submitted the online booking form, emailed both Oxford and London branches a couple of times, called every day for two weeks, and left an answerphone message - radio silence. Quite a bold move seeing as the email addresses seem to have individual names on them (I assume of the managers of the bars); whoever the owner is, you need to have a word with the people supposedly running your establishment. Judging by my experience and other reviews, they seem to be a little too relaxed to care about customers.

Gone massively down hill in the last 2 years. Poor service and Well overpriced in todays market

Great place to have a cocktail!

Amazing experience with a techno party.

One of the rudest staff I have ever encountered or witnessed here in Oxford or anywhere in the UK for that matter. Will definitely file a formal complaint together with other impacted customers for the behaviour of both the security staff and the waiters. Some of my friends were refused re-entry for exiting the establishment for 5 minutes to say goodbye to people who were leaving. This was after we had payed full ticket fees and consumed at the bar on top of that. One of the waitresses refused to serve me after I had accidentally skipped a very busy and muddled queue order, for which I immediately apologised, and she nonetheless told all the other bartenders not to serve me or accept my drink token for which I had payed. Later that evening I was also refused re-entry myself by one of the rudest security staff I have ever come across. On top of threatening to call the police if we insisted to maintain dialogue with one of them, a security staff member also shoved my female friend away from the door. A pretty appalling experience for a relaxed event made for undergraduate and postgraduate students organised by the University societies. The establishment’s staff, through sheer rudeness, incompetence and sense of entitlement, made it a very tense evening. Several of the impacted students will make sure the organising societies will never use the establishment’s services again. Strongly advise against coming here, especially for any fellow students.

My favorite bar / place to party in Oxford! This is a super spacious, BEAUTIFUL building. It was originally an old church that's since been refurbished. You can still admire the beautiful stained glass windows, though. There's a ton of space to mingle with friends or strangers. When we came at night it tended to be dimly lit with loud music playing, definitely a club type atmosphere, so you could get lost in the crowd pretty easily. Of course, they may have since changed that vibe since it's been a few years since I visited...but I loved it at the time. The friendly bar staff also fixed me the best White Russian I've ever had, too, so that definitely helps with the nostalgia factor. :)

it's a difficult one, I really like your place. The interior is super cool, cocktails are NICE, the atmosphere is ace. Staff could be slightly a bit more attentive. On one occasion I stood at the bar for quite some time before bartender stopped chatting to her mates at the bar and took the order. And honestly I was a bit like "meh" i walked here for 20 minutes telling my friend how amazing this place is for a barmaid to not pay attention, have a private conversation at the bar, and when finally paid attention to us tried to brush us off as fast as she could to get back to her conversation although we wanted to ask questions about the drinks. I did say to my friend "honestly it isn't like this always". But well done on the place.. its super cool.

Amazing, best bar in Oxford, the people who work there are polite and thoughtful people, I recommend it to everyone, a great team of professionals and great drinks,

Great people at the bar, terrible bouncers.

A great place to go to for cocktails! Reasonably priced drinks that are very well done by the staff, and they taste amazing. I am yet to try the entire menu, they have so many options to choose from! All staff are very polite, professional and you can tell that they genuinely love doing their job. The manager, Jemima, is absolutely lovely and she has clearly done an amazing job at training her team. There have been many occasions where I have brought my son along with me on the weekends, at earlier times, and the staff have been very welcoming - my son loves this place. Another thing that I love about this place is that they are pet friendly, which is an extra bonus. I would 100% recommend Freud to everyone! A very unique and beautiful building that is definitely worth a visit, without a doubt.

Had many great evenings here. Staff are all friendly and have wonderful customer service, the drinks are amazing and fairly priced. Will definitely be coming back in the future.

Great bar with a wide variety of quality drinks at a very reasonable price. The staff are also incredibly polite and very welcoming!

Good cocktails (+generous for price), good vibe, and the building/interior is one-of-a-kind. Plus you can tell the staff really enjoy working there!

Our favourite bar! Such a great team and even better cocktails, go to Freud!

Such a great venue! Incredibly friendly staff. Plenty of clean toilets. Highly recommend to anyone! Also great for private events! They always have great DJs to.

Such great cocktails, in a beautiful building and the most amazing staff! Would highly recommend!

Great bar with brilliant cocktails and the most amazing staff!

Best cocktail bar in oxford, great atmosphere and reasonable prices

Terrible behaviour of staff and management.

really unpleasant staff, mean to customers.

The establishment failed to let people in based on an arbitrary policy and was overpriced.

Best place in Oxford for official & semi-official events. Atmoshperic club in a former church building, friendly staff.

Building is very cool but cocktail are not great. Very small glasses and poorly presented drinks. I am not in a rush to return.

Here for a wedding reception; absolutely stunning venue with great staff and cocktails.

Great choice of cocktails and decent prices. Lovely atmosphere and big open space.

Beautiful place and great cocktails! We had a very nice time :)

This is fantastic spot, and anybody who disagrees is a whinnying fanny. 4 stars or less = they don't know what a knees up in a old church yard is all about. Very warm bar staff. Hearth and worth, that's what you get here. Don't like hearth and worth? Get off their turf you lowly serf, of lowly birth. Cocktails leave nothing to be desired. Service is unbelievable. Lighting makes me feel like I'm in a fairytale.

Great service and great environment Highly recommended.

A bar in an old converted church, what's not to like? Well, the setting is certainly unique. Drinks and service though leave a lot to be desired. Such a shame because this place should be the coolest venue in the city. But it's not.

Amazing place! Lovely unique venue, like no other! Great cocktail list followed up by tasty, proper cocktails themselves! Lovely friendly staff to make you feel welcome! Would highly recommend! :) x

Went here for first time with friends, lovely interior and nice cocktails. Only negative is service, my phone couldn't read the QR code for the app so went to the bar to order, staff seemed annoyed even though I explained I was having technical difficulties...

Beautiful, romantic, chill, dreamy, rustic, authentic.

Sadly, going downhill at speed. Really nothing like the quality found at FREVD London, the Oxford branch continues to get worse, with amateurish service, poorly made cocktails, and standoffish staff.

Lovely building and okay cocktails but door staff think they are working somewhere far more exclusive than they are. Not welcoming at all.

Awesome bar. Great cocktails and the beers were nice and cold ❄

Really helpful man on the door (head doorman) plus man who showed us to our table could not stop dancing. Very cheerful start to the night, you couldn't not be in a good mood with that kind of entrance. Music was really good and the cocktails were amazing. George made us some absolute corkers including the tutti frutti, bramble, and real Freud. The long island ice tea almost finished me off. Great time had by all. Highly recommend

Very expensive and just not that great service? It's a shame because it's such a beautiful location, has so much potential.

Brilliant bar, went for a friends birthday drinks and had a whale of a time. Staff were soooooo nice and if I could recommend any drink, get the Pina Koko, delish.

Best place in oxford to watch the euros this summer, and always 10/10 cocktails highly recommend

Watched the England vs Croatia game there and had an amazing time. Friendly atmosphere great service and excellent drinks. Will be headed back!

Great cocktails and service highly recommend!

Incredible venue and staff, can't sing praises high enough. Can't wait to revisit

Was refused to come in even with an reservation. Totally unreasonable. Would not come here in my life. Update: all of us were wearing masks.

Great venue, can’t recommend this place enough. Huge thank you goes to the staff who went above and beyond with my table. Massive thanks to Mo, Vanessa and Jemima.

Toni the security was amazing best ever gave me support... Sophie was the best bar maid and brilliant service and done the best zombie I’ve ever had. Jemima was just amazing. Was also great service and amazing smile 😃

Nice drinks and atmosphere. However we weren't told our booking had a limit and were asked to leave halfway through a round with nowhere else to go before our train 2 hours later.

Cool building with an awesome asthetic. Great cocktails. Very large space but it felt a bit empty, maybe because of covid

I am highly disappointed with my experience at Freud. After the place being hyped up by just about everyone I’ve met in oxford, I finally got round to organising an evening there with my friends. We booked a table for 6, at 8pm last Friday night. After being sat down and told how to order drinks on the website, all six of us were confronted with the same error message on our phones on the ‘checkout’ page- which apologised for the inconvenience but told us that Freud were not taking orders at the moment. Confused, we asked the bartender, who said that they had temporarily frozen orders because they were overrun with drinks to make. We understood, and waited patiently for the system to re-open, and kept refreshing the page to try and order. We ended up having to wait until 9pm to order our drinks- a whole hour after arriving and first trying to order. By the time our drinks arrived, we obviously had to chug them down pretty speedily before we were all chucked out at 10. This was the worst service I had ever seen at a bar. With all the Covid restrictions and booking in advance, surely Freud knew exactly how many people they were expecting that night, and that everyone would be ordering a drink. I do not understand why we had to wait an entire hour before ordering! Do not let someone book a table for 8pm if you do not have the capacity to take their drinks order until 9pm.

Very basic drink menu, sick atmosphere

Never had anything other than a great experience here. Their Japanese Slipper cocktail is perfect.

Awesome place! Amazing atmosphere and super friendly staff. It was the highlight of our trip to Oxford. Strongly recommended!

At first I thought it is a museum, I took a picture, I approached it, then, surprised to find it as cocktail bar.

So glad I walked in. Good vibe place. Friendly staff. Chilled out music.

Amazing space! Nice selection of drinks

The venue is interesting and they play good music. But it suffers from not being very clean (toilets are awful and all tables were sticky and wobbly). Also I had a cocktail and it was sickeningly sweet, couldn't get it down. Others may be better, but I suggest sticking with beer that is on offer.

The bar it's BEAUTIFUL. But I've never experienced a more unreliable bar. I tried to go on 5 different occasions, at different times and days, never managed to have s drink. Closed, having private functions or deciding to stop serving earlier, it never matches with its Google opening hours. It's a shame, but we won't keep trying after 4 weeks of this.

Really nice, spacious and open venue that is reasonably priced. The staff is also super friendly and attentive.

Great atmosphere, beautiful surroundings.

Excellent venue and we had a great time here. Also fantastic customer service (shout out to Jemima in particular) as they went out of their way to return some lost property to me.

What a gem! Unique location and nice, tall cocktails.

Amazing variety of cocktails and great location. A great place to chill on a weekend afternoon.

Evocative, in a deconsecrated church, a trendy bar where you drink and listen to music.

Great cocktail selection, but music could be a bit better and more varied. Cool space to check out though!

Only two bartenders available and they are so slow that we had to bounce to some other pub to get a drink and this was just a weekday...I would not recommend this place.

Too expensive! The atmosphere is very special

Love this atmospheric local family owned Oxford treasure

A great place with a lot of atmosphere. Not cheap, but definitely a worth it if you like good cocktails.

Waiters are rude but the place is nice