As I might have mentioned a couple of times lately, next week marks a significant date: 17th August is the tenth birthday of this blog. The first blog post went up on that day in 2013, setting out my stall and going on a little about Reading and what I hoped to bring to the table. My first Tweet, sent a couple of days before that, elicited a practically instant one word response from the then food editor of the then Reading Post. “Credentials?” it said. Even then, somebody was rattled.

In the beginning, to be honest, I wasn’t sure whether it would take off. Another Reading restaurant blog launched pretty much the same week as I did and, in an experience I would have many times over the next ten years, I kept a friendly eye on the competition just to see if the town was big enough for the both of us. And I’m sure it was, but that blog limped on for just over a year and quit.

It was the first, but by no means the last. Over time Alt Reading, Explore Reading, RdgNow, a blog about roast dinners, a blog about breakfasts and a couple of other blogs whose names escape me right now have come and gone. The most recent of them started up last summer: it managed two months.

By the end of 2014 the Reading Post had also given up the ghost, its website beginning the long process of decay and putrefaction that has led to its current state. And through all that, somehow, this blog has kept going – through divorce, redundancy, Brexit and whatever the other horseman of the apocalypse is calling itself these days. I know: I can’t quite believe it either.

Anyway, I hope you’ll allow me a little bit of trumpet blowing, today of all days, because I’m hugely proud of what my blog has achieved over the past ten years. Here’s a statistic that blows my mind: a few weeks ago, I published my up to date review of Bakery House. The blog got more hits that week than it received in the whole of 2013, when it used to look like this.

I always hoped it would be successful, and I always intended to carry on writing it as long as it was fun and there were people out there to read it. And it turns out there were: all of you, whether you’re new to the blog or long-standing readers, have played a massive role in that, and I can’t thank you enough.

And it’s definitely been fun. When I look back on 10 years of reviewing restaurants there are so many moments that stand out that it’s difficult to narrow it down. That time my review got shot down by a bunch of commenters who happened to work for the restaurant, for example. Or my first hatchet job, the incident with the one-armed lobster. The time I went for dinner with the actual CEO of Reading Buses, or the meal that raised a thousand pounds for Launchpad.

The numbers, in hindsight, are pretty astonishing, to me at least. By my reckoning I’ve written over two hundred and fifty restaurant reviews, covering pretty much every kind of food Reading has to offer and nearly every kind of restaurant. I’ve reviewed the shiny new places and the grand stagers that have been in Reading far longer than my blog.

In some cases I’ve been to the same building again and again, as restaurant after restaurant has tried to make a go of the site, leaving strata of food history behind. I’ve now been doing this so long that, like painting the Forth Bridge, I’ve started going back to the places I reviewed in the early days, to see what’s changed.

I tend to think that following Reading’s food scene, over ten years, has been every bit as much of a rollercoaster as supporting any football club. It has changed beyond recognition in that time, with a plethora of great independent restaurants coming and going, a beer scene and a coffee scene springing up out of nothing and street food unmatched by anyone between here and London to the east and Bristol to the west.

And if you’re anything like me you’ll have experienced euphoria and despair as wonderful new places have come to town and some of Reading’s best restaurants, despite our best efforts, have closed down. In the weeks ahead I’ll be writing some articles about the most significant restaurants of the decade and the saddest closures, so stay tuned for that, but in the meantime I’m struck that it was also a decade of oddballs and strange flashes in the pan.

Here are just a few of them. The Venezuelan cafe near the Jobcentre that nobody ever went to. A shop that only sold pretzels. A homophobic American fried chicken restaurant that was run out of town by protestors, in a moment to make any Reading resident proud. Whatever the fuck Lemoni was about. I could go on, but I won’t.

Is Reading a better place now for food and drink than it was back then? Five years ago, I would unquestionably have said yes but now, after Covid and a cost of living crisis created largely by the government I’m afraid I’m not so sure. We’ve seen the closure of many great independent restaurants, with others moving out of the town centre in search of bigger premises. The stranglehold of dodgy or unimaginative landlords still blights everywhere inside the IDR.

In 2013 I made a big thing of saying that there was more to Reading than chains. And look at us now: Wendy’s, Jollibee, Popeyes and Taco Bell. The struggle is real, and harder than ever before. But let’s not focus on that, because over the last ten years there has always been somewhere wonderful to find, if you were prepared to look.

As part of my birthday celebrations I plan to publish my list of Reading’s top 50 dishes, with which I expect you will all violently disagree, but in the meantime I’ll just say this: I’ve eaten a lot of fantastic food, sometimes in the unlikeliest places. I’ve eaten outstanding jerk chicken in a pub garden off Chatham Street, and excellent burgers on Cemetery Junction. I’ve found surprisingly good coffee in the hospital, and god’s own samosas down the Wokingham Road.

I’ve had superb sushi, epic full Englishes, magnificent fried chicken and inventive regional Indian food that was all kinds of drop-everything-and-rush-to-social-media wonderful. I’ve had the best Chinese food of my life in a former greasy spoon by the university. To paraphrase the great Roy Batty, I’ve eaten things you people wouldn’t believe. Except you probably would, because for ten years I’ve documented a lot of it.

And I’m very fortunate that you lot have read it, and still get in touch with me all the time to tell me that you’ve been somewhere on my recommendation and loved it, or tipped me off about somewhere you love that you think I might like too. That sort of engagement is the lifeblood of a blog like this, and it stops it feeling like screaming into the void.

In fairness, it’s never felt like that, not even on day one. You’ve all played a part in that, and I honestly think that in turn has contributed to developing Reading’s food culture and a perception – a quite valid one – that our beloved town quietly punches far above its weight when it comes to eating and drinking.

I felt proud too when my blog was mentioned in the national press, not once but twice, back in 2021, although it says something about the demise of print media that I didn’t rush out, either time, to buy a copy. It remains one of the highlights of the last ten years – that and the time that professional spine donor and serial opportunist Alok Sharma dubbed me an “anonymous troll” (honestly, so many people came out of the woodwork to say lovely things you would not believe).

But I felt even prouder – not for me, but for the restaurants concerned, and for the whole of Reading – when Reading restaurants started getting the recognition they deserved in the national press as we started to emerge from the pandemic. And the very pinnacle of that, of course, came when Clay’s Kitchen got a glowing review in the Guardian this year, a review that showed a real interest in understanding what made that restaurant and its story so special. Good old Grace Dent: she might have blocked me on Twitter, for reasons which genuinely escape me, but she was spot on about this one.

Another thing I’m enormously proud of, over the last ten years, is the regular ER readers’ lunches. I held the first one in January 2018 at Namaste Kitchen, unsure if anybody would want to come and feeling, in truth, a little apprehensive about stepping out from behind the protective curtain of anonymity. I needn’t have worried: over five years on, I’ve organised fifteen of them across ten different restaurants, and by my reckoning the best part of a hundred and fifty people have come to one or more of them. 

In that time people have gone from being readers to friends, I’ve had some brilliant post-lunch boozy conversations in pubs and taprooms and nursed some corking Sunday morning hangovers. I always find those events a little nervy as everybody turns up, taking a register like I’m organising a school trip, fretting about whether everybody is present and correct and the restaurant knows who the vegans are, who has allergies and intolerances. And then, at some point after everybody is seated, the first dishes come out and I can let myself enjoy the good-natured hubbub: a wonderful serene calm settles over me like a blanket and I realise it’s all going to be all right. Again.

And the food at those events, my goodness. Whether it’s the Lyndhurst cooking up a storm with dishes that haven’t ever quite made it onto their menus (their stuffed courgette flowers were a particular treat), Clay’s putting together a series of showstopping tasting menus, never repeating a dish, never skipping a beat or, in the early days, I Love Paella making a special rabo de toro empanada I still think about some days, the food has always been incredible. Every restaurant raises its game, wanting to make something special and show off what it can do, and my readers and I are a truly lucky bunch. 

The last one, at San Sicario, featured an artichoke flan in a bagna cauda sauce which was the stuff of salty, savoury dreams, along with a faultless duck ragu draped over golden ribbons of pasta and a dish of ox cheek cooked in Barolo until it had given up the fight completely. I thought San Sicario was a good restaurant before that virtual trip to Piedmont, afterwards I was certain of it. The next readers’ lunch, at Clay’s for the first time since the pandemic, is a joint celebration of my ten years and their five, and I already know it will be magical.

But more than that, those events well and truly remind me of something very important about Reading. It is a wonderful place, with so much going on – so much music and drama, so much food and drink, coffee and beer. From Bohemian Night to Readifolk, from Shakespeare in the Abbey Ruins to Reading Rep at the Junction, from Bastille Day to Cheesefeast, from Workhouse to C.U.P., from Double-Barrelled to the Retreat we live in an incredible town, still, despite the best efforts of those American chains, our landlords and the council.

Yet with the demise of local media, and the slow death of hyperlocal websites, people don’t always know that. I see so many people at my lunches who want to love Reading but haven’t yet found their tribe, their place, their favourite spots. I hope my lunches help them do that, and I hope my blog helps people do that too. If it’s helped you at all in that way, at any point over the last ten years, then not a moment of the time I’ve spent writing it has been wasted.

While I’m thanking people, it would be remiss not to mention the unsung heroes of the blog – the people who come and keep me company on reviews, letting me taste their food and, sometimes, letting me drag them to places they’d possibly rather not visit. By my reckoning I’ve had an incredible twenty-seven different dining companions over the course of the blog, which makes me sound like a second-rate Doctor Who. Some just turn up once, some have become regular fixtures.

They all add something completely different to the experience, for me, and always have something to say, whether it’s my mum judging the crockery (or the bins), my friend Jerry eating Japanese food for the first time ever in his sixties or, most recently, Emma showing off an impressive talent for smut. I never did go to Wetherspoons with Matt Rodda, but maybe that’s one for the next ten years.

And of course, I do have to say a particular thank you to one person. To Zoë, my fiancée – I’m still not used to how lovely it feels to use that word – who has been an ever-present for over five years, uncomplainingly joining me at all kinds of restaurants, from the sublime to the ridiculous, for providing me with good photos and even better copy (and the occasional expletive-laden revolt), and of course for upping my own expletive count. I can honestly say that I don’t know if this blog would have kept going without her support and encouragement. Even if it had, it would have been an much poorer place without her playing such an active role in it.

Last but not least, even though this is starting to sound like an overlong speech at an awards ceremony, I do have to thank all of you, again, for giving me some of your time every week to read about a random restaurant, even one you might never go to. I never take it for granted, but it’s been a real privilege to do this week in, week out. Ten years, eh? I bet it must feel like you’ve spent that long just reading this.

Anyway, as I said, for the next few weeks the blog will be given over to some special anniversary content. I’ll be covering the ten most significant restaurants to open in Reading in the last ten years (spoiler alert, Lemoni won’t be on there) and the ten saddest goodbyes of the decade (spoiler alert, Lemoni won’t be on there either) and then, just to give you all something to take exception to, I’ll be listing my entirely subjective view of Reading’s 50 best dishes right now.

But after that, we’ll be right back to business as usual. There’s a new Brazilian café out in Whitley I’ve heard about, and a Portuguese cafe just opened down the Oxford Road. People are telling me the new Lebanese restaurant on the Wokingham Road is well worth trying, and only this week a Korean fried chicken joint opened on Market Place. It never stops. And, as we all know, these places aren’t going to review themselves, are they?

This piece is part of Edible Reading at 10. See also:

• The 10 most significant restaurants of the last decade
• The 10 saddest closures of the last decade
• Edible Reading and me
• Reading’s 50 best dishes (50-41)
• Reading’s 50 best dishes (40-31)
• Reading’s 50 best dishes (30-21)
• Reading’s 50 best dishes (20-11)
• Reading’s 50 best dishes (10-1)