Snackbar
Restaurant · Oxford
721 N Lamar Blvd, Oxford, MS 38655
Highlights
Oysters, cocktails & South Asian-influenced Southern specials.
Oysters, cocktails & South Asian-influenced Southern specials.
"One of the chef’s neighborhood venues in Oxford, this place is connected to a culinary ethos that values traditional Southern components—homemade cornbread, liberal use of celery, onion, and sage—and the flexibility to adapt dressings with additions like oysters, pecans, or sausage." - Chris Fuhrmeister
"New Orleans-born chef John Currence moved to Oxford in the 90s and hasn’t looked back. He opened City Grocery in 1992, following with Bouré, Big Bad Breakfast and Snackbar. He was named Best Chef South in 2009, with Snackbar chef Vishwesh Bhatt earning the James Beard honor in 2019. All of Currence’s restaurants are noteworthy, but Snackbar is something special. From perfect cocktails and raw oysters to chef Bhatt’s imaginative South Asian influenced Southern specials, no wonder snagging a reservation can be a feat." - Beth D’Addono
"At the Oxford, Mississippi restaurant where he has been executive chef since 2009, Bhatt introduced an eggplant-and-okra caponata that stays close to the Sicilian template—fried eggplant, capers, olives and a sweet‑sour agrodolce—while adding okra after experimenting with other vegetables because its seasonality and texture complemented eggplant and tomatoes. The recipe is included in his debut cookbook I Am From Here, which weaves his Gujarati-Indian background into Southern cuisine; the restaurant survived pandemic hardships and is now navigating recovery and staffing challenges as Bhatt contemplates future cookbooks." - Rebecca Flint Marx
"Held up as a model for the future of dining as civic life, this Mississippi restaurant embodies the idea of many small gathering places where food facilitates conversation, politics, and community exchange rather than merely transactional eating." - Eater Staff
