Feature: The 2023 Edible Reading Awards

On December 29, 2023December 29, 2023 By ediblereadingIn Features10 Comments

One final bit of gastronomic navel gazing to close out the year: it feels like the blog has been a little (by which I mean “even”) more inward-looking than usual. That has a lot to do with the tenth birthday celebrations and a series of pieces covering Reading’s game-changing restaurants, its saddest closures – which of course went to print before the awful news from the Grumpy Goat – and Reading’s 50 best dishes. The latter in particular risks having some overlap with this year’s awards, so whatever you do don’t scurry off to read those posts just to point out that the gongs I’m giving out today don’t bear close enough relation to what I said in September; three months is a long time in Reading restaurant politics.

As I said in my round-up of 2023, it’s been another extraordinary and record-breaking year on the blog and although I’ve cast my net more widely this year, travelling to Oxford, London, Bristol and – no, this isn’t a typo – Swindon in search of good restaurants to review, there have still been an enormous amount of terrific dishes on display in Reading.

Some, sadly, were available when the year began but aren’t as it ends – the beautiful pizzas at Buon Appetito, for instance, Cairo Café’s cracking shawarma, the Reuben at the Grumpy Goat or San Sicario’s white crabmeat tumbled onto rosti. And other dishes were on menus but have since been whipped off to make way for the new (those troublemakers at the Lyndhurst are particularly prone to this, much to my chagrin).

But even with all that said, deciding these awards has been every bit as difficult as ever. Sometimes it’s hard enough to pick the best dish offered by a particular restaurant – especially with the likes of Reading’s holy trinity, Clay’s, Kungfu Kitchen and the Lyndhurst – let alone the best dish of the year in the whole of town. Those three restaurants, to me, still represent the apex of Reading’s food scene but, I have to say, there’s an awful lot of strength in depth when you consider all the other independent restaurants, pubs, cafés and bars in town.

And when Reading doesn’t quite have what you want, well, the Elizabeth Line is making it easier and easier to find it elsewhere; more people may commute into Reading for work than out of it, but I do still worry that, far from bringing the brightest and best to Reading, Crossrail might have the opposite effect. Maybe this time next year my awards will be a series of dispatches from Hounslow and Farringdon rather than Tilehurst and Woodley. Stranger things have happened.

But anyway, let’s celebrate the best of the year from a town which still, very much, contains the capacity to surprise and delight. And before I start opening virtual envelopes, let me also wish you all a very Happy New Year – whether you’re down the pub, living it up in a tap room, out for a fancy meal or sitting at home on the sofa watching When Harry Met Sally. Given that the latter is one of my very favourite ways to see out the year, top marks to any of you going down that route. Wherever you are and however you celebrate – or don’t – I shall raise a glass to all of you on Sunday night.

STARTER OF THE YEAR: Korean chicken wings, the Lyndhurst

I’ve had these a lot in 2023. There was a period when they were on the main menu – replacing the Lyndie’s karaage chicken, I was quite upset about that at the time – and then they just cropped up on Wednesdays when the pub does a portion of wings and a pint for a tenner. That, like so much the Lyndhurst does, is a bargain so ridiculous that you could be forgiven for wondering how they make money.

I have never been a big fan of chicken wings and the reward to faff ratio they seem to embody. They’re up there, for me, with stuff like crab and lobster where I want somebody else to go to the effort for me. And yet I am absolutely hooked on the Lyndhurst’s Korean wings. The sauce has that complex, savoury depth that only gochujang can offer and it’s remarkably easy to plough through ten of the blighters almost without noticing.

If they take these completely off the menu next year and put the karaage chicken back on I will be just as devastated, and then I’ll fall in love with the replacement all over again. Korean food is having a bit of a moment in Reading, with two new places opening in the second half of the year. But trust the Lyndhurst to do it first, and do it better. It’s just typical of them.

Honourable mentions go to Clay’s impeccable pork belly, which is far too nice to share even though I always seem to end up sharing it with someone when I go there, more’s the pity, and last year’s winner, Kamal’s Kitchen’s thhicheko aalu, which remains the best potato dish in town bar none.

CHAIN OF THE YEAR: Honest Burgers

When you consider that the main new chain to open in Reading this year was the deeply mediocre Popeyes, it’s perhaps no surprise that the main contenders for this award are the same as they were last year. But for me, this year, Honest has edged it for consistency. When I’m in town short of time, or coming back from work and not wanting to cook, I have found myself falling into Honest on a fair few occasions, often after a medicinal beer a few doors down at the Alehouse. And it never lets me down.

Honest is in danger of being forgotten these days, because it’s been part of the scenery so long. I can’t remember the last time I went when it was heaving, but it’s never empty either and it’s seen off arguably its closest competitor in the shape of 7Bone, which has given up on the town centre and now trades out of Phantom. But in any case I was always on Team Honest and this year, if anything, they’ve improved. Their chicken burger, after a slightly indifferent start, is now on a level with the rest of their menu and now that Wild Weather have upped sticks and moved to Wales the restaurant stocks beer from Windsor’s Two Flints instead, which if anything is a trade up.

Honourable mentions go to Pho, which is very reliable but possibly better as a takeaway option than to eat in, and Shree Krishna Vada Pav, which has become a very enjoyable part of my lunchtime regime.

LUNCH VENUE OF THE YEAR: Picnic

I have visited Picnic a lot more this year: it’s Zoë’s choice of lunch venue, especially when she’s cutting down on the carbs, because their weekly salad boxes hit the spot. Initially I joined her grudgingly, having a little moan about the prices, or the quality of the coffee.

But a lot has changed since I was a regular at Picnic – the coffee is at a different level now, and they’re the only place in Reading I know of that still uses beautiful Lacey’s milk. And the salads get more and more inventive and delicious, whether it’s sticky edged chorizo and butternut squash or warming, sublime chicken shawarma. Their toasties, which also nudge close to a tenner, are a little on the pricey side but they’re also executed superbly: one I had this year with burrata, ‘nduja and peppers, the outside properly buttered and bronzed, was up there with my favourite lunches of the year.

Honourable mentions go to Madoo, still one of my favourite places to while away a lunchtime (although their coffee needs to improve to match their toasties and cannoli) and Shree Krishna Vada Pav. If I’m in a real rush at lunchtime I’ll saunter over just to have one of their vada pav: glorious, affordable carb-on-carb high jinks.

OUT OF TOWN RESTAURANT OF YEAR (BERKSHIRE): Knead Neapolitan Pizza, Maidenhead

The frequency with which I have visited Knead this year has surprised even me. Fancy a quiet few weekend drinks at A Hoppy Place but need to line the stomach beforehand? Knead it is. Want to have lunch with my old friend before going to watch Maidenhead United serve up some absolutely dogshit football at York Road? Off to Knead, just round the corner, first. And when my Canadian relatives were in the country, and we wanted to find somewhere to meet halfway between Reading and their London Airbnb for beer, good food and a proper catch up, Knead fitted the bill superbly.

That makes it sound like the location was everything, but that doesn’t do the place justice. The service is terrific, the specials are great, the local beers by nearby White Waltham brewery Stardust are a treat and they get the basics very right. Much as I love some of the pizzas on offer in Reading there’s still a bit of me that would love to pick Knead up and drop it somewhere convenient in Reading – where O Portugues used to be, for example. They’ve now introduced an anchovy pizza, which pleases predictable me very much, but the “Hello Gourd-Geous” – with pumpkin, blue cheese and ‘nduja – is a knockout.

MAIN COURSE OF THE YEAR: Monkfish tacos, The Lyndhurst

The Lyndhurst has always done tacos well – I fondly remember their shredded pork tacos, in the latter half of 2020 – but the monkfish tacos on their menu until recently were just outrageously good, a high end re-imagining of fish tacos at a crazily approachable price. Generosity doesn’t even come close – each taco was crammed with two huge pieces of monkfish in the lightest of batters, with guacamole, hot sauce and lightly pickled red onions. They were so crammed that rolling them up and eating them was a feat beyond me: I’d have needed bigger hands and a far bigger gob.

Although I’m sad that the Lyndhurst has taken them off the menu – though they may still crop up on the specials menu – it was probably for the best, for my imagination and my bank balance. Because there were many weekday evenings where Zoë and I would begin a conversation, me on the train home and her finishing her shift, and it was only a matter of time before one of us cracked and said “or we could just have monkfish tacos tonight”. Perhaps if it had been on the menu for less time I would have reviewed even more restaurants in 2023. As it is, I am nothing but grateful that I got to enjoy it so many times.

This was an exceptionally hard category to judge and either of my honourable mentions could easily have won it on any other year. One was Clay’s yakhni pulao, a dish which started as a special and graduated to the main menu, a mound of rice cooked in broth and marrow and coronated with a sticky lamb curry, the perfect synthesis of Nandana’s and Sharat’s skills in the kitchen and, somehow, as emblematic of their partnership as the restaurant itself. The other was Bakery House’s boneless baby chicken, a dish which, like Bakery House, is every bit as good as you remember.

CAFE OF THE YEAR: Workhouse Coffee

Despite losing Tamp a few years back and, of course, no longer being able to drink Anonymous Coffee at the Grumpy Goat, Reading remains a superlative place to drink great coffee. And Workhouse is very much the eminence grise of Reading’s coffee scene. For my money it still does Reading’s best latte and even if it’s in a tricky spot with a troublesome landlord and a guano spattered courtyard which isn’t the outside space it once was, it remains a strangely magical place to sit with a contemplative coffee.

I have lost track of the number of coffees I’ve had there – first thing in the morning on my way home from acupuncture, at lunchtime grabbing half an hour with Zoë or on a weekend, pretending to read a paperback while constantly hitting refresh on Twitter. It never lets you down and the service – from Steve, Kirsty, Rachel or any of the rest of their happy brigade – is always terrific. I saw recently on social media that the Oxford Road branch was even open briefly on Christmas morning, which gave me a little proud glow. We’re lucky to have Workhouse, even if sometimes it’s easy to overlook because it’s been there so long.

Honourable mentions go to C.U.P., and in particular its Blagrave Street branch which I really do love, and to Minas Café out in Whitley. I can see myself having more coffees there next year.

OUT OF TOWN RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR (OUTSIDE BERKSHIRE): COR, Bristol

COR was my meal of the year, a rare example of me going somewhere before it was discovered by every Tom, Dick and even bigger Dick. I loved it when I went there in February and reviewed the place, and I made sure that when I went back to Bristol I dragged Zoë and some other friends there. It not only gives small plates restaurants a good name, but everything is so beautifully executed that you could eat three different meals there on three successive nights, never repeat yourself and never have anything short of magnificent.

I know I get occasional stick for reviewing places outside Reading, but you don’t quite know what Reading is missing until you go somewhere like COR and then it does come remarkably into focus: we are missing places like this. I think of everywhere I’ve reviewed in 2023 COR is the one I would most recommend without reservation or qualification, and I would love Reading to have more restaurants even half as good. At my most recent readers’ lunch a couple of the guests told me they’d gone out of their way to visit it earlier that year: that gave me almost as much pleasure as eating there myself did.

Honourable mentions go to Manteca – the best meal out I’ve had in London for many years – and to the gorgeous Los Gatos in Swindon. There may not be a huge amount of reasons to visit Swindon, but when one of them is Los Gatos you don’t need any others.

SERVICE OF THE YEAR; London Street Brasserie

Earlier in the year I had a Saturday to myself and I decided to have a solo lunch, sit at a table for one, sip a glass of red and read Olive Kitteridge between courses. Ironically I only went to LSB because the Lyndhurst was closed for a private function, and they happened to have a table available online there and then. And then I went, and they put me at the best table in the whole restaurant – the big round one in the corner with a view of the whole ground floor – and they were unfailingly lovely from start to finish.

I am absolutely certain they didn’t know who I was, not that I’m anyone. I was just some random Joe who as good as came in off the street and the treatment I had was just fantastic throughout. From my excellent vantage point, I could see that I was literally nothing special. Every table got that attention from a really hard-working, happy team, and I think if you can make a solo diner feel as welcome and looked after as a boisterous, bustling table for six you have the knack of something really important, something not enough restaurants can do. My meal was good but not great – I might well have eaten better at the Lyndhurst, and certainly cheaper – but as an experience it was hard to beat.

It really saddens me to only be able to give this award to one restaurant. Vesuvio and Minas Café, in very different but equally valid ways, are both worthy runners-up in this category. And I have to mention Barista & Beyond here too, because the service (and the experience) there made me think hard about hospitality and how lucky we are that some businesses are so good at it.

DESSERT OF THE YEAR: Peanut butter ice cream, Clay’s Kitchen

Many years ago I held a readers’ lunch at Clay’s and I had one guest at it, a lady called Alessia, who couldn’t eat any of the desserts Clay’s usually does because of her allergies. Nandana made a vegan peanut butter ice cream, just for her, and it was so phenomenal that everybody else had dessert envy. That’s the genius of Clay’s, that they can cater for restrictions and make something which made everyone else feel like they were missing out. Nandana gave me a little bowl of it to try that day, I had a few spoonfuls and then I passed the bowl around because I felt guilty that I had tasted it and others hadn’t.

Fast forward to September, at a lunch to celebrate ten years of the blog, and I asked Nandana to make it again, on the menu for everybody this time. She did, and it was such a hit that it’s now on the main menu so everybody can experience what first Alessia, then some other guests at that lunch, and then a bunch of other diners years later got to try. It is a glossy, rich and beautiful thing and very richly deserves this award. And before any of you say but it’s just ice cream or words to that effect: try it first.

This is another category with entries positively jostling for the top spot. My runners up are Minas Café’s gorgeous, sweet and sunny passion fruit mousse and Sarv’s Slice’s outstanding tiramisu.

NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR: Sarv’s Slice

I quite liked Sarv’s Slice last year when it was a semi-permanent trader at Blue Collar, and I particularly liked their carbonara pizza. I thought it was a clever move for them to take up residence at the Biscuit Factory: I rather liked my pizza there when I visited on duty. But I don’t think I could have realised, at that point, what a boon they are for Reading.

Their pizzas have got better and better – keeping the classics superb but then adding specials which nudge up the quality, pizza by pizza. The carbonara made a brief comeback, but even better was a Spanish special with aioli, confit garlic potatoes and chorizo piperade: a number of Italians who follow the ER Facebook page were up in arms, but I say they were missing out. And then further through the year Sarv’s Slice started turning out Detroit style pizzas – deep pan beauties with an airy base and crispy, cheesy edges. By that point my warm feelings towards Sarv’s Slice had morphed into a full-on love affair. The Biscuit Factory is lucky to have them, as are we.

Honourable mentions in this category go to Minas Café, which to be honest deserves some kind of award just for being Minas Café, and to Vesuvio which really pleasantly surprised me when I went to review it back in October, with no particular expectations.

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR: Clay’s Kitchen

Clay’s has always been a phenomenal restaurant, right from the start. Some places take a while to find their feet but Clay’s, in terms of the food, had everything spot on from day one. Five years later, they are the restaurant that has put Reading on the map – more than Kungfu Kitchen, despite its brilliance, more than the Lyndhurst, which never gets the credit it deserves, and way more than the Lido, which has burned through chefs and made the most of its connections to the broadsheets but never really lived up to its potential.

But Clay’s wins this award this year because, to me, this year it became the restaurant Nandana and Sharat always wanted it to be. The big, tasteful, buzzy, classy space in the heart of Caversham, with that open kitchen, the gorgeous high tables, that skylight making all the dishes photogenic, the wonderful drinks menu and all those marvellous dishes.

There isn’t any menu in Reading that can quite match Clay’s for quality and depth. And even if I was just talking about their main menu, that would be true. But this was the year that Clay’s also launched a world-beating small plates menu which can match anything you’d get in Bristol or London and, for a while, their equally gorgeous brunch menu. For the time being, Clay’s has scaled back to its standard menu (although, Clay’s being Clay’s, they had a separate Christmas menu, and a separate menu for Christmas Day, and another for New Year’s Eve) but as a statement of intent it showed you exactly what Clay’s is about.

It would grace any town or city in this country, and that Reading has it should be a source of enormous pride. I have loved every meal and every dish I’ve had on Prospect Street this year – and I know I’ve been there far less frequently than many of its adoring fans. But, like them, I can’t wait to see what Clay’s comes up with in 2024.

THE ER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD – Greg Costello, Workhouse Coffee

What is there to say about Greg Costello that hasn’t already been said? Well, I imagine many others are far better qualified to pay tribute to him than I am, but none the less, here goes: when Greg set up Workhouse Coffee, back in the mists of time, Reading was a very different place. There was no coffee scene, and coffee in Reading still meant Costa, Coffee Republic and the retro delights of places like Platters and Chelsea Coffee House. And although the landscape has changed enormously, Workhouse has never lost its place at the heart of things. It remains Reading’s landmark coffee shop, and has influenced countless others – Tamp, Anonymous and C.U.P. would not have existed, but for Workhouse.

That Greg is still visible (well, let’s be honest, hard to miss) in Workhouse is quite an achievement, especially as in the same time he’s done other jobs in coffee like working for Nude. I read a recent review of Gordon Ramsay’s three star London restaurant by food spod Andy Hayler where he called out that Workhouse supply their coffee. “Coffee was from speciality coffee roaster Workhouse Coffee in Reading and was very pleasant” he said, and if you’ve read Hayler as much as I have you’d know that such faint praise is as good as him jizzing in his y-fronts. It made me strangely proud of Workhouse, and Reading, and yet this isn’t something Costello goes on about at all.

He is a complicated and iconoclastic character, which I rather love. My favourite story about Greg – a man who perhaps shouldn’t be allowed near his company’s social media – is when I did a Tweet about Workhouse Coffee back in 2019. I said that you had to hand it to them: that they didn’t have wi-fi, didn’t have a loo, didn’t publish a price list and didn’t take card payments under a fiver. I said I admired their “take it or leave it” approach to customers. Greg responded in classic irascible fashion, missing the point that really, I was paying him a compliment. Because all those whistles and bells, that other cafés might have, were beside the point compared to the quality of Workhouse’s product.

As someone who also occasionally divides opinion – surely not, I hear you say – I recognise a kindred spirit in Greg and I can’t think of a more appropriate recipient for my first ever ER Achievement Award. Not that it will mean anything to him at all: I suspect he either won’t react at all to getting this award or will shrug and say it’s worthless. In this, as in many things, he’s probably right. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve it.

2023: The Year In Review

On December 22, 2023December 22, 2023 By ediblereadingIn Features4 Comments

It’s a shame to start this piece with an apology, but I’m afraid I’ll have to. Normally when I sit down to sum up the year nearly gone, as is traditional by now, I’m fairly chipper: the working year is close to done and dusted, the presents are all bought and good times, socialising and shedloads of booze are just around the corner. By contrast as I write this I’m still recovering from Covid – which I’ve managed to catch for the first time ever, unfashionably late, in December 2023 – I’ve not left the house in a week and have only just reached the stage where the coughing isn’t stopping me from getting to sleep, although my sense of smell isn’t quite what it was yet. Ho ho ho!

So this year the Christmas break can’t come soon enough, although I might well spend it under a blanket watching old episodes of Frasier or one of my favourite not-quite-a-Christmas-movie movies, The Apartment. Even the thought of opening a bottle of wine or an imperial stout, right now, makes me feel a tad queasy and, with the exception of chocolate, food has somewhat lost its lustre. What better mood to accompany a look back at 2023 in the world of Reading and its restaurants, eh? Precisely.

I always feel like a bit of an Eeyore writing these roundups, or I have since the pandemic, because it seems like every year I basically say well, fewer restaurants have closed this year than I expected but mark my words, next year reality is going to bite and the bounceback loans have to be paid off and the bills go through the roof. Next year is going to be grim.

And here we are, December 2023, and I’m delivering that speech again. Fewer restaurants have closed this year than I expected, and I’m impressed that so many are hanging in there. I hope they all have a very busy festive season to keep them going through the drought that is January. And this time next year, having no doubt been proved wrong again, I’ll try to say something different.

That doesn’t mean we didn’t lose hospitality businesses in 2023, or that we didn’t lose some really cherished ones, but looking at the numbers it could have been an awful lot worse. First of all we lost O Portugues, the Iberian outpost on the edge of Palmer Park, in the weirdest way: they shut their doors in March, put an update on Facebook to the effect that it wasn’t goodbye forever and they just never returned. Google still has it marked as temporarily closed, but it’s been temporarily closed for most of the year.

The following month, the same thing happened on the west side of town: Buon Appetito’s lights went out, and stories began to spread of people turning up for reservations to find the place closed with no sign of what was going on. It, too, was temporarily closed. Rumours swirled around of issues with the landlord, or the building, but five months later something new opened in that building and so we knew Buon Appetito was gone for good. I was desperately sad about that one – it made my list of the ten saddest closures of the last ten years.

Also in April we said goodbye to Cairo Café, and that also really saddened me. I wish I’d been there more often, and I wish others had been there more often too. It reminded me of the closure, many years before, of Cappuccina Café a few doors down, both of them a constant reminder that however hard you try or however good a business is, sometimes things just don’t work out. A shawarma place is there now, and at some point I should bring myself to review it.

Another restaurant that has been temporarily closed for a very long time is Oishi, the Japanese restaurant down the Oxford Road. They announced on Facebook in June that they were closing for renovations, but with every passing month the site looks less renovated and more derelict, panels in the windows patched up with boards. They may come back next year, but then so might Philip Schofield.

Who else? Well, Bel and the Dragon finally gave up being a waste of one of Reading’s loveliest spots in July and now Fullers pub The Narrowboat trades in its place. The menu doesn’t look hugely different from that at the Three Guineas in town, but if they pull it off it could be a lovely spot, especially when summer comes around again.

Perhaps even more significantly, August was the month that Oracle neighbours Franco Manca and The Real Greek decided to jump before they were pushed by the ongoing redevelopment work. It’s a funny illustration of the Joni Mitchell principle: I’d never really considered stopping into Franco Manca for a quick post-work dinner, until I couldn’t. August was also the month that Mr Chips, fresh from a refurb, was badly damaged by one of several fires seen in the town centre in the second half of the year. It too is – those two words again – “temporarily closed”.

The other really sad closure of 2023, for me, was San Sicario, which didn’t make it to a year in that ill-starred spot on the roundabout at the bottom of the Caversham Road. There is something unjust about the fact that Cozze, serving awful food, managed to limp on in that spot for years while San Sicario didn’t even get to blow out a solitary candle on its first birthday. I always thought it was a good restaurant with the potential to be a great one, and maybe one day when all the flats are built in that part of town it will be able to support a place like San Sicario. Until then, people will just mutter about the site being cursed, and how there’s no parking. As we’ll see shortly, someone has already stepped up to give the site another whirl.

But of course, the most significant closure of the year, the one that got all of town talking and pondering whether we deserved nice things, was the shock closure of the Grumpy Goat at the end of October. I say “all of town”, but more than anything it illustrated that the food and drink social media echo chamber isn’t necessarily representative of the town as a whole: for all the devastated comments on Berkshire Live’s Facebook posts about this there were always a few saying “I hadn’t heard of that place.” But for once, the closure wasn’t down to the business lacking customers: the Goat was always busy, and seemed to be thriving, but the owners put it all down to the landlord.

That in itself led to a lot of lively debate on social media: surely the landlord couldn’t chuck them out with a week’s notice? Could they? Is that what actually happened? I suspect we won’t know how or why negotiations broke down between the Grumpy Goat and the landlord, but either way it’s tragic that Reading lost its most vital, modern, independent and inclusive business within the IDR. Anyone who liked good beer, great cheese, wonderful toasties, brilliant coffee or even just feeling proud to live in a town that could offer all those things in such a tasteful, well-executed space was immeasurably poorer when November began. And I can’t blame anyone for looking at Reading in the aftermath of that closure and feeling like a light had gone out.

But if you wanted any illustration that 2023 was still, against the odds, a year with more growth than shrinkage, look at the many and diverse businesses that opened over the last twelve months, ready to give it their best shot. Right at the end of 2022 Calico opened in what used to be Great Expectations, now Hotel 1843, offering an interesting (if strange) fusion menu of Indian dishes and pub food. I need to make my way there to see if it works, and when I do I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist the “Magic Mushroom Croquettes”, even if they can only disappoint.

Perhaps more typical of the class of 2023 were chains in the town centre, filling big units and making Reading just that little bit more like everywhere else. So in February we got Popeyes, which probably excited a lot of people but left me unmoved, and Coco Di Mama, which is owned by the same people as Zizzi and, to me, offers about the same amount of excitement. Berkshire Live went there in April and was hugely excited about the food offering there. “As is normal with Italian cuisine, it was topped with a hearty helping of Gran Formaggio cheese and a few green leaves” said the article: ah, that world-renowned Gran Formaggio cheese nobody has ever heard of.

The other big site to fall under the control of a chain was the old Pizza Hut site on the Riverside, which reopened as Marugame Udon in April. It holds an almost unique accolade in that I went there earlier in the year with a view to reviewing it, walked in, thought What the fuck, this is like a school canteen followed by Nah and then left. I promise next year I’ll try harder. Infinitely more welcoming was the hugely enjoyable Cici Noodle Bar which opened on Queen Victoria Street in February – I loved it, when I went.

Fortunately, most of the other restaurants and cafés that opened this year were independent, and far more interesting prospects. From Pasibrzusek, offering Polish food on the Hemdean Road to Minas Café’s brilliant Brazilian in Whitley, from Traditional Romanesc operating out of Buon Appetito’s old home to Portuguese Time 4 Coffee on the Oxford Road, Reading still has a procession of plucky independent places trying to convert people to new cuisines and new ways of eating.

And as the town centre gets that little less imaginative and less interesting, things crop up on the outskirts of town to compensate. Tilehurst, for instance, got the very credible Vesuvio Pizzeria, which manages to give casual, mid-priced Italian dining a good name. Meanwhile down the Wokingham Road Hala Lebanese opened in the spot once occupied by the less impressive Alona. East Reading has needed a good neighbourhood restaurant for a very long time: could this be it?

For me, the west side of town remains where the more intriguing businesses seem to be materialising. Aside from Vesuvio, Time 4 Coffee and Traditional Romanesc, there’s also the enormously likeable Barista & Beyond, not to mention Sarv’s Slice which has taken up residence upstairs at the Biscuit Factory and, over the space of nine months, made a very convincing claim to offer Reading’s best pizza. By those standards Caversham looks positively stagnant, although I was delighted to see Spanish deli Serdio Ibericos, fresh from its short-lived stint at the Collective, opening next door to Geo Café this month.

2023 was also the year when Korean food continued to increase its presence in Reading. In August The Bap opened where La’De Express used to be, offering a range of Korean fried chicken and bibimbap, and for my money they offer another excellent low cost, speedy casual dining option in town. And at the end of the year AKA BBQ Station, an all you can eat Korean barbecue restaurant, opened where Pizza Express used to be on St Mary’s Butts: I’m not sure I see the logic of calling a restaurant AKA (okay, it’s also known as that, but what’s its actual name?) but it could provide something a cut above the likes of Soju, providing it doesn’t fall into the trap of being a lot like Cosmo.

The other new openings of 2023 are all interesting in their own ways. Jieli Hotpot opened in Sykes’ Paradise in August, just down from Banh Mi QB, continuing to turn that mall into a fascinating little enclave of Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese restaurants (Fluffy Fluffy, offering Japanese pancakes, also opened there in August). Say what you like about John Sykes – say, for example, that he’s Reading’s answer to Henry F. Potter – but you can’t deny that something is afoot in the place formerly known as Kings Walk.

And then last but not least, two other intriguing establishments opened in Reading this year. In August, Filter Coffee House, possibly Reading’s tiniest café, opened on Castle Street offering Indian filter coffee, baked goods (including their already renowned banana buns – somebody hopped on that bandwagon nice and early) and now an interesting range of street food snacks on Saturdays. Watching them go from strength to strength through their thoroughly charming Instagram account has been one of the rays of social media sunshine in the second half of 2023: I plan to go back there and review it properly early in the new year.

And lastly, the new opening that provoked a lot of interest came with barely a month of the year remaining. Masakali, which apparently means “pigeon” in Hindi, opened where San Sicario used to be and offers a menu of Indian dishes not quite like anywhere else in Reading. Some of the dishes would appear to show the influence of Clay’s, some – like a samosa chaat with “Walker’s Crisps” – seem to be sui generis.

Does the fact that the restaurant is owned by the same people as Reading’s slightly pedestrian Biryani Lounge make it less appealing? How about the fact that the menu has apparently been designed by an external consultancy company who, according to their website, “are always digging up family recipes from moms and grandmas across India”? Your guess is as good as mine: I’ll have a better idea once I’ve reviewed it, before too long I hope. Since writing this, I’ve also discovered that The Coriander Club opened on 6th December in Calcot, also offering what looks like higher end Indian food (their menu was designed by another, different, consultancy company: is this a thing now?)

Aside from that, I suppose there are a few other things to call out from the year. One was that Thames Lido, which at one point was burning through chefs like the U.K. burned through Prime Ministers, made an interesting choice this year by appointing Iain Ganson, formerly of the Bell at Waltham St Lawrence. I’ve always loved Ganson’s food, and I’ve always found the Lido hugely inconsistent, so this will be an interesting one to watch next year. So far the menus I’ve seen look like standard Lido fare, but time will tell whether Ganson spends his time there singing someone else’s tunes or creating his own melodies. Having said, several times, that I wouldn’t go back to the Lido again I guess now I’ll just have to.

And of course, I couldn’t let a round-up of the year pass without noting, again, that this was the year that Clay’s finally got that review in the Guardian, a rave writeup from Grace Dent which managed to capture exactly what makes Reading’s favourite restaurant so very special. I wonder if remembering Nandana’s and Sharat’s food was the final straw that caused her to walk out on I’m A Celebrity? I guess we’ll never know.

The other big closure of the year, of course, was Berkshire Live. It announced that it was closing on 30th November, leaving the Reading Chronicle and, I suppose, Rdg Today as the only conventional news sources in town. Now, you would probably expect me to have a good old pop at Berkshire Live at this point – and believe me, it’s tempting – but really it’s a cause for sadness more than anything. I feel for the journalists who need to find new work, and it’s typical of Reach plc to make people redundant the payday before Christmas.

But I also think that what Berkshire Live became wasn’t good for anybody – not for people who wanted to read about Reading, not for journalists who surely wanted to write decent copy rather than regurgitating shit from TripAdvisor or solemnly announcing, on Facebook, that Walkers had discontinued beef and onion crisps. Whether you liked the Evening Post or not, you couldn’t deny that it served a community. The website Reach plc turned that into over eight miserable years was a sad parody of what it used to be: I hope everyone involved finds better, more fulfilling jobs in the new year.

And last of all, because I was bound to talk about this before the end, this was the year that Edible Reading turned ten years old. I have gone on about that quite long enough already in a series of articles in August and September, but I’ve been enormously touched that this was another record breaking year on the blog with more readers and page hits than ever before.

I know that I’ve written more reviews this year from London, Maidenhead, Oxford, Bath and Bristol (and yes, even Swindon), so I’m especially heartened that many of the most popular reviews of the year are the ones from further afield. It’s one in the eye for that “you’re meant to be Edible Reading” dullard who pops up in my comments about once a year.

So I am incredibly grateful for that, and for all your support, and for everybody who has read a review, Retweeted a review or commented (even to say “you’re meant to be Edible Reading”). I’m grateful to everybody who’s joined me on a review, or come to a readers’ lunch, or sent me an email to tell me to review somewhere, or thank me for reviewing somewhere.

I am grateful, now more than ever, for every single time someone tells me they put their faith in me and one of my reviews, went somewhere for lunch or dinner and loved it. Just as much as an independent business is moved every time you put your hand in your pocket and support it, an independent blogger is moved every time you vote with your feet and trust his or her recommendations. So thank you very much, for all of that.

Doing this roundup has been a thought-provoking wander through the last twelve months. Things aren’t as bad as they can seem, and for every Grumpy Goat or Cairo Café that closes there is a Minas Café or a Filter Coffee House or a Vesuvio Pizzeria to redress the balance. The battle for the soul of Reading hasn’t been lost yet, however deflating some of the closures can feel, and we can all do our bit.

And in my case, that means getting to some of the many places that opened this year so that, this time next year, I’m not talking about a bunch of places and constantly saying “of course, I’m yet to try it out”. So I will neglect Reading a little less next year, even if I can’t promise to go to Doner & Gyros.

It just remains for me to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas – however you celebrate, whoever you celebrate with and whatever you eat. Personally I’ll be at home in post-Covid isolation with Clay’s At Home warming up on the hob and an enormous amount of chocolate for afters. I’ll be back next Friday with the 2023 Edible Reading Awards, but until then I hope you all have a fantastic, happy festive period. God bless us, every one.

Café review: Minas Café

On December 1, 2023October 12, 2025 By ediblereadingIn Reviews3 Comments

I think it was Kierkegaard who said, very wisely, that life can only be understood backwards, but it has to be lived forward. And I think you could say the same about food trends: it’s easy to pontificate at the start of the year about what you think is going to happen, but the world of food is full of surprises and it’s far better to bide your time, get to the point where the New Year is around the corner and identify the patterns with the benefit of hindsight.

It doesn’t take much to form a food trend in Reading either, even if it is the U.K.’s largest town: two similar establishments opening in a year is a coincidence, three is a trend. So last year Reading had two main trends, I would say. The first was biryani places springing up all over the shop – Biryani Mama, Biryani Lounge, Biryani Boyzz and so on. Add in the ambiguously-named Biryanish and you definitely have yourself what passes for a trend. And of course there was the proliferation of sushi places – Intoku, Iro and You Me Sushi all opened in quick succession to challenge the primacy of Sushimania, Yo Sushi and grab and go chains like Kokoro and Itsu.

What about this year? Marugame Udon and Cici Noodle Bar opened weeks apart, but I’m not sure that’s quite enough. For me the biggest trend of the year has been a raft of interesting cafés, moving beyond the ubiquity of third-wave places like Compound or C.U.P. to offer something less generic and more regionally specific, potentially the antidote to all those “not another coffee place” bores out there (where will they go now Berkshire Live has kicked the bucket?).

So down the Oxford Road you have Time 4 Coffee, a cafe apparently offering pasteis da nata, Portuguese bread with chouriço and a range of other traditional dishes from that under-represented cuisine; I’ve not yet been, but it’s high on my list to review next year. On Castle Street Filter Coffee House is already making a name for itself with its authentic South Indian filter coffee and absolutely delicious banana buns, and continues to develop a big menu for such a little space, with intriguing specials available every Saturday morning.

And then finally we have the subject of this week’s review, Minas Cafe, which opened in April and is perhaps the most incongruous of the lot – a Brazilian café, no less, in Whitley, of all places. That I hadn’t been to check it out yet felt like it was verging on neglect, so last Sunday when I had the day to myself I hopped on the number 6 bus just before lunchtime and alighted by Buckland Road. Whitley was shrouded in a drizzly mist, the day murky and dreich: a less Brazilian scene was difficult to imagine.