City guide: Granada

On By ediblereadingIn Travel2 Comments

A more recent guide to Granada can be found here.

Everybody has their happy place, and the Spanish city of Granada is mine. I first went there around twenty years ago: I was visiting my old schoolfriend Mike (who actually crops up in this blog from time to time) getting over a disastrous relationship. He lived in Madrid, but for some reason we decided to take a very long coach trip all the way across the country to spend a couple of days in Andalusia. It’s the sort of thing you do in your twenties, I suppose, like sleeping on somebody’s floor or deciding that Batchelors’ Savoury Rice and a bottle of Mars Energy Drink constitutes an acceptable diet.

Anyway, I don’t remember much about that visit but I do remember Granada. Bar after bar, beer after beer, and free tapas with every one. Beyond that, my evening was a blur – we wandered through the winding lanes of the Albaicin, the city’s Moorish quarter up on the hill, and ended up in a nightclub in a cave until the small hours of the morning. Even in our mid-twenties we were probably too old for that sort of thing, and as the sun came up we sat outside Cafeteria Lisboa on Plaza Nueva (it’s still there) and had a beer for breakfast for the first and probably only time of my life. What a city! What a place!

Since then I’ve been back many times and what began as a passing infatuation has blossomed into a love affair. I worked out recently that I’ve gone on holiday to Granada more times than anywhere else – including four times in the last five years, believe it or not – and I never tire of it. It’s not the most beautiful of Spanish cities, I’m sure. It has a certain scruffy energy (which comes partly from its student population, I suspect) and it seems to attract a lot of day trippers who come to see the Alhambra and then sod off. You get a lot of American tourists at neighbouring tables, and I think it’s quite popular on the hippy trail – lots of white people with dreadlocks, if you catch my drift. But none the less, it remains my favourite city on earth.

It’s hard to put my finger on why, but tapas is doubtless a big part of it. On my first visit Mike told me that although tapas was an Andalusian invention it was only really in Granada that the bars prided themselves on providing it free of charge. Some of the tapas is really inventive, and the bar staff always seem to remember whether you’re on your first, second or third drink, bringing out a different dish to accompany each one. Once, on a night out in Granada with my old friend Dave, we ordered a couple of glasses of sweet, gloopy Pedro Ximenez only for the staff to bring out dessert tapas – two beautiful, perfect squares of cheesecake and two tiny forks (they may have thought we were a couple: it sometimes happens).

But there’s so much more to Granada than the food and the bars – lovely, sun-flecked squares perfect for sitting, drinking coffee and watching people, stunning buildings, bazaars and tea rooms, spellbinding Moorish architecture and whitewashed churches. I’ve been threatening to write a guide to Granada for years, and given that my most recent visit was on holiday back in May I’ll probably never have a better opportunity than this. I hope it tempts you – because there are few better feelings than getting off the plane and walking across the tarmac at Federico Garcia Lorca Airport knowing that you have lazy days of sunshine, tapas and relaxation ahead of you.

Where to eat and drink

I’ve grouped these together because, really, in Granada they go hand in hand so my recommendations tend to be tapas bars. Some of them do have tables you can sit at, or even book, but more often they are stops on a magnificent barhopping journey, joining the dots across the city and having a couple of drinks and some tapas in every one. If you do want a sit-down, starters-mains-desserts kind of place, Ruta del Azafran looks out on the Alhambra, has a lovely outside space on the Paseo de los Tristes and can be booked online: I very much enjoyed my chicken pastilla last time I was there. Or, if you want a proper gastronomic treat, book a table at El Claustro and enjoy the Andalusia-inspired tasting menu there.

Both have their place, but I’ve always found my best food experiences in Granada have involved using my elbows, standing up at the bar and being in the heart of proceedings. I thoroughly recommend giving it a whirl.

1. Bodegas Castañeda

I visited Bodegas Castañeda on my very first trip to Granada and I’ve been back on every single visit, frequently more than once. It’s now become the first place I eat when I get to the city, the gastronomic equivalent of Pope John Paul II kissing the tarmac. Confusingly, there are actually two Castañedas – the original bar was apparently split in two as the result of a family falling out – but the one on Calle Almireciros is the one you want. Stand at the bar, order a beer from one of the staff (who, incidentally, work like Trojans) and wait for your first tapa to arrive. Then, when you’re ready, dive into the menu: there’s manchego as gritty and crystalline as any Parmesan; broad beans with big chunks of super-savoury jamon; thick, salty slabs of bacalao swamping slices of bread; mojama (sun dried tuna) drizzled with olive oil and scattered with almonds.

On the last full day of our holiday, we managed to grab a table in the sunshine outside amid all the bustle and feasted on platters of cured fish with asparagus, capers and caviar, patatas a lo pobre with sweet onion and several glasses of cold, crisp beer. We experienced one of the great uncharitable pleasures of eating in restaurants, namely watching people being turned away from the place where you’re eating because there’s no room left. Even without taking that into account, I felt like I was at the very epicentre of my happy place.

Bodegas Castañeda, Calle Almireciros, 1-3

2. Taberna La Tana

La Tana is the place to enjoy wine in Granada, a beautiful little place on the edge of the Realejo, the city’s liveliest and scruffiest district. It’s a tiny room, and people often spill out onto the street outside, but if you can get there early enough to grab its only table you do feel like you’ve won the lottery.

All the wines by the glass are quite outstanding but, as so often, the food is what transforms the experience. I still dream about the black pudding here – sweet, fragrant morcilla de Burgos served hot and topped with pine nuts. They also, incongruously, do some of the best guacamole I’ve ever tasted: you often get it as a tapa with drinks but if not it’s well worth ordering it in its own right. La Tana isn’t an unsung a place as it was when I first started going there, so prepare to hear a lot of American accents. It’s worth it, though.

Taberna La Tana, Placeta del Agua, 3

3. Saint Germain

Saint Germain always feels to me like what would happen if Granada and Paris had a beautiful child – it’s a tapas bar, yes, but with an impressive range of wine and, oddly, a Marcel Proust theme which extends all the way through to the menu. Much of the food is good enough to induce a madeleine moment many years later, too – on my last visit I really enjoyed the chorizo in honey (not a combination I’d had before) but I absolutely loved the blue cheese and wild mushroom risotto: even typing this makes me remember that divine combination of salt, starch and tang.

The staff here were lovely and friendly in the face of my stumbling Spanish, too – even more so than elsewhere in Granada. The tables outside are terrific, and badly needed in summer, but the interior is wood-panelled, conspiratorial and definitely lends itself to conversations, even ones not about À la recherche du temps perdu.

Saint Germain, Calle Postigo Velutti, 4

4. Bar Aliatar Los Caracoles

I always make time to explore Granada’s Albaicin when I visit the city (see Things to see and do, below, for more about the Albaicin) but in the past I’ve always struggled to find somewhere nice to eat around there. Los Caracoles on Plaza Aliatar was a very welcome discovery on my last visit – a lovely dappled square and an appealing menu made for a perfect lunch spot.

Caracoles means snails, and they are on the menu (many tables seemed to be having them as tapas) but if, like me, you’re not a fan there’s plenty to enjoy. I had some gorgeous hand-carved jamon and a big bowl of broad beans with (more) jamon, served with an egg on top, waiting to release its yolk into the rest of the dish. This was also my favourite people-watching spot: I became fascinated by a pair of dapper old gentlemen – Panama hats and all – at the next table eating, drinking and waving their hands around. I couldn’t decide whether I wished I could eavesdrop on them or whether knowing what they were saying would have killed the magic.

Bar Aliatar Los Caracoles, Plaza Aliatar, 4

5. Mercado de San Agustin

Although less developed than, say, Malaga’s market, I really liked the Mercado de San Agustin. There are plenty of stalls inside selling meats, cheeses, wine and all the other usual suspects, but I loved sitting outside and ordering from a menu in the sunshine.

I ended up eating there twice, so much did I enjoy it, and everything I had was near perfect – whether it was swordfish or bacalao straight off the plancha, perfectly cooked and drizzled with oil and herbs or baby squid piping hot and waiting to be dressed with freshly squeezed lemon juice. But the revelation was tomatoes aliñado, huge things cut into slices like steaks, beautifully sweet and dressed with olive oil and big salt crystals, one of the most magical things I ate on my tip. It made the bland polytunnel tomatoes we get in the U.K. feel halfway between a disappointment and a national embarrassment.

Mercado de San Agustin, Plaza de San Agustin

6. Potemkin

Potemkin, a little bar in the Realejo district opposite the modern language school, was a real find on my last visit. It’s in a pretty square, the service is excellent and best of all, on Wednesdays they serve sushi – and that means sushi tapas, too.

When my caña arrived with some beautifully made avocado maki, I was both baffled and delighted. By the time the next one was brought to the table with some salmon nigiri, I was convinced that sushi and tapas was the combination the world had been waiting for. The tapas was more conventional, but no less delicious, on a return visit: by then I was daydreaming about living in a world where a bar like Potemkin was just around the corner.

Potemkin, Placeta del Hospicio Viejo, 3

7. Café Futbol

Breakfast in Granada means churros, and churros means Cafe Futbol (although Gran Cafe Bib-Rambla, in the more central and splendidly-named Plaza Bib-Rambla, is also worth consideration). Sitting in the square outside with half a dozen churros, a zumo de naranja and a café con leche sets you up perfectly for the day, and Café Futbol does them better than anywhere else I’ve found. The batter is perfectly sweet yet salty, and although lots of people like to dunk them in thick, gloopy chocolate I prefer to empty the contents of a sugar sachet onto my unused saucer and gently dab them in that, giving just a little crunch and sweetness. It’s not infra dig to dip them in your coffee, either, if you ask me.

Cafe Futbol, Plaza de Mariana Pineda, 6

8. Los Italianos

Only open during the summer months, Los Italianos is Granada’s legendary gelataria, conveniently located on Gran Via, pretty much opposite the cathedral. It says something about the time of year I usually visit Granada that my recent trip was the first time I’ve ever gone to Los Italianos (and the second, and the third). It’s proper old-school cool: I suspect they have been operating pretty much the same way for decades and the gelato, although maybe not hitting the heights of Italy, is still bloody marvellous and deeply welcome on a hot day (when not in Rome, and all that). I loved the gianduja gelato – enough to have it more than once – but the salted caramel was also very nice indeed.

Los Italianos, Calle Gran Vía de Colón, 4

9. Noat Coffee

You can get a café con leche or the like pretty much anywhere in Granada, and I’ve always thought they’re one of life’s great pleasures when you’re on holiday in Spain. But if you do find yourself craving a more refined, delicate coffee more reminiscent of a Tamp or an Anonymous, Granada has a few really good options.

La Finca near the cathedral is excellent, and I rather enjoyed Dulcimena Coffee in the heart of the Realejo, but my favourite was Noat, a really sweet little café also in the Realejo. They are really friendly, they serve superb latte and although they only have a handful of seats inside there’s a bench out front where you can drink your coffee and watch the city beginning to wake up from the night before. Highly recommended.

Noat Coffee, Calle Santa Escolastica, 7

10. Capitán Amargo (previously Colagallo)

Granada’s craft beer scene is very much up and coming, but Capitan Amargo, in the Realejo, is at the heart of it (it’s the only bar in Granada on Untappd). It’s more polished than some craft beer pubs I’ve been to in Spain, and it had an impressive array of beers from Spain and beyond (Belgium and the U.K., unsurprisingly, also get a look in). We tried a couple, from Basqueland Brewing and local brewery Sacromonte and loved them both.

Craft beer must be a tough sell in Granada of all places, where an Alhambra is not only as cheap as chips but usually accompanied by free food, but the tapas in Capitán Amargo were also substantial and very tasty, especially the empanada I had. Service, as it nearly always is in craft beer places, was really charming, engaging and enthusiastic. He wanted to know what we made of the beers and once he had established that we were English he wanted to talk about our dealings with Europe (Liverpool FC, thankfully, rather than fucking Brexit).

Capitán Amargo, Calle Molinos, 28

Things to see and do

1. The Alhambra

The Alhambra is probably the single reason most people visit Granada, and it’s quite possible that many tourists bus in, visit the Alhambra, get back on the coach and head on elsewhere without ever seeing the city. It’s a whole complex of palaces, gardens and fortifications and you really do have to visit it if you ever go to Granada (and if you do, be warned: you need to buy tickets online some way in advance). Although the gardens are beautiful and peaceful and some of the other palaces are either grand or charming, the real attraction here are the Nasrid Palaces, a succession of increasingly beautiful courtyards and halls, patios and fountains.

Many words have been written about the Alhambra by many people, and I don’t think a couple of lines by a restaurant reviewer are going to do the place justice – none of my photos of the place, taken over the course of over a decade, do either. All I would say is that every time I go I see something new, and get lost in it all over again, from the beautiful, intricate carvings to the gorgeous tile work, the breathtaking ceilings and the stunning arches. The views out across the Albaicin are amazing, and even the tourists crawling round every inch of it can’t detract from its majesty. I’ve been to very few tourist attractions in my life that even come close to living up to the hype. The Alhambra easily does all that, and more besides.

2. The Albaicin

The Albaicin, the old Moorish quarter of the city, is on the hill opposite the Alhambra and is itself a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s a lovely place to wander and explore, all winding steep lanes and whitewashed houses with courtyards resplendent with flowers. One of the focal points is the Mirador de San Nicolas, with its iconic view out across to the Alhambra (and, usually, quite a lot of people selling beads/sporting dreadlocks/playing Bob Marley songs on a guitar). If you want a better view of the Alhambra the trick is to nip next door to the tranquil mosque, where you get the same vista but with a welcome added dose of dignity.

Half the fun of the Albaicin is getting lost in it, but it’s also worth checking out the gorgeous whitewashed church of San Miguel Bajo (and having a beer in one of the places in the square outside) and picking your way through the streets leading off the buzzing (if unfortunately named) Plaza Larga. It’s also worth mentioning the streets which lead up into the Albaicin from the city centre, Caldereria Vieja and Caldereria Nueva, because they are lined with tea houses or teteria. It’s well worth stopping in one for a fresh mint tea, poured into tiny glasses with some ceremony from a great height, or té Pakistani which is sweet, perfumed and milky like chai. As Sirat is my favourite teteria, but any of them is worth a visit.

3. The Monastery of Saint Jeronimo

The most famous monastery in Granada is La Cartuja, the Carthusian monastery quite a way out of the city. But I have a real soft spot for the monastery of Saint Jeronimo, which is a ten minute walk from the cathedral. It’s unassuming and modest at first, and walking round the cloisters, smelling the orange trees in the courtyard, you could be forgiven for wondering what the fuss is about. But the chapel, and more specifically the altarpiece, is one of the most incredible and overblown things I’ve ever seen. The photo above doesn’t come close to doing it justice and even after countless visits it never loses its power. One of my favourite things about introducing new people to Granada is taking them to the monastery, showing them the chapel and watching them try not to swear in a house of God.

4. The Alcaiceria

Not far from Granada’s handsome cathedral (also worth a visit, come to think of it) the Alcaiceria is a little maze of passages offering a miniature equivalent of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. It’s a nineteenth century replacement for the fifteenth century original, which was destroyed by fire, and although many of the shops sell very similar goods (lots of lanterns, leathergoods and marquetry – wooden inlaid boxes) it’s a very pleasant way to amble and window shop. You don’t get hassled or invited to haggle as you would in the Grand Bazaar, either.

5. Patio de los Perfumes

Granada isn’t rife with shopportunities, although I always love a pootle round its branch of El Corte Ingles, complete with its slightly preposterously named Club Del Gourmet in the basement (you can imagine Frasier and Niles buying their sherry there). I do love Rafael Moreno Orfebre, an old-school shop that sells silver jewellery inspired by the intricate designs of the Alhambra. But my favourite shop in Granada is Patio on the picturesque Carrera del Darro, a museum of perfume which also sells beautiful fragrances based around the signature aromas of the city – so you can expect plenty of jasmine, orange blossom and pomegranate. I came away with a bottle for me and a couple extra for my friends.

Patio de los Perfumes, Carrera del Darro, 5

(Click here to read more city guides.)

Kungfu Kitchen

On By ediblereadingIn Reviews6 Comments

As of June 2024, Kungfu Kitchen has moved to a new site on 62 Christchurch Green, a minute’s walk away from its old site.

I love lists, to an extent which probably verges on unhealthy. At any given time I have several on my phone: things to do; shopping to get; household chores to finish; people to see. I enjoy the feeling you get – and if you’re wired like me, you’ll understand what I’m talking about – when you add something to a list for the sole reason of immediately ticking it off. Really, I ought to have a list of all my lists where I rank them in order of preference, but even I know that might be taking things too far.

Anybody with a to do list will also know that there’s always at least one thing on any to do list that you keep shunting to the bottom. You look at it, you’d like to be the kind of person who tackles it right away, but in the end you know you’re really the sort to leave it to another day. Some days, every item on your to do list looks like that: those are the days when personally, I’d rather just stay in bed.

Kungfu Kitchen, the Chinese restaurant on Christchurch Green, has been on my reviewing to do list all year without ever getting to the top. There’s a website, which is stunningly uninformative, and a Facebook page which has a couple of decent-looking photos but nothing more. They’re on Twitter, but they haven’t Tweeted this year. (N.B. Following this review Kungfu Kitchen has updated its website with a full menu – the link is at the end of this review – and has become much more active on Twitter.) The menu looked on the authentic side, as far as I could tell, but the Tripadvisor reviews were mixed to put it lightly. So my regular accomplice Zoë and I walked up the hill towards the university area with a certain degree of trepidation, not at all sure what to expect.

Subscribe to continue reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

Revolución de Cuba

On By ediblereadingIn Reviews

Let’s get this out of the way straight away: it’s not a typo, you don’t need to adjust your set and you definitely don’t have to pay Specsavers a visit. This really is a review of Revolución de Cuba, Reading’s Latin American bar slash (chain) restaurant.

You might wonder what possessed me. Here’s what – I’ve been complaining for some time about Reading lacking a good tapas restaurant, a feeling which was compounded by a holiday in Granada at the start of the month. I returned even more bereft that I couldn’t find somewhere good to eat jamon, manchego, croquetas or chorizo in cider (let’s not dwell on the fact that in Granada you get something free with every beer: one step at a time).

On my first day back in Reading I sat in the courtyard outside Workhouse Coffee and ate paneer from Bhel Puri House while enjoying a crisp Estrella from the hotel bar next door, and it made a decent substitute but I still found myself wishing Reading had somewhere more suitable. That’s when the idea of trying the tapas menu at Revolución de Cuba entered my head.

Subscribe to continue reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

Feature: The best of Reading (2019)

On By ediblereadingIn Features8 Comments

Just over two years ago, I wrote a piece called “The Best Of Reading”, detailing the ten places I thought best illustrated Reading’s food culture. It was prompted by a conversation with a Reading doubter – you know the sort, people who slag Reading off without ever trying that hard to discover life outside the bland confines of the Oracle or restaurants beyond the chains. It was my attempt to counter that kind of lazy criticism, and I published it just before I made my comeback after nearly a year on hiatus. The feedback from everyone was truly lovely, I picked up reviewing again and two years later here we are.

The decision to publish this updated version was also prompted by a conversation, albeit a rather different one. I was having dinner one evening last month and my dining companion, who didn’t know Reading all that well, expressed surprise about what an interesting place it was. “At first I thought it was just another big town in the south-east” he said, “but if you scratch the surface there are all sorts of things going on.” I agreed that it punches above its weight, and then started rattling off the reasons why, many of which make it into this piece. The previous version of this feature was a rebuttal, but this one is far more of a celebration – and that feels exactly as it should be.

Of course, plenty has changed between 2017 and 2019. Some of the places which made my top ten last time around have closed: the sad losses of Dolce Vita and I Love Paella, both down to greedy landlords. Some don’t make my list this time because the ever-improving standard means they aren’t quite as good as they used to be: no room for Papa Gee, lovely though it is, or for Ketty’s Taste Of Cyprus, which lost its talented front of house and never seems open when I walk past. Reading’s restaurant scene is nowhere near as fast-moving as in other towns, and restaurateurs consistently complain about how hard it is to find decent premises (I can’t help but feel our council should be able to help) but even so things have moved on in the last two years.

Here, then, is my list of the ten restaurants and cafés that most contribute to making Reading’s food scene special and distinctive as of May 2019. Any list is entirely subjective, and I wouldn’t have done my job properly if people didn’t get as aerated about what I left out as they were excited about what I’ve put in. But it is worth mentioning, with regret, that I couldn’t find room for Perry’s, House Of Flavours, Bluegrass or Soju.

The focus on the distinctive also meant excluding chains, which rules out the likes of Honest, Pho and Franco Manca. And although we have excellent coffee and beer in Reading, it’s for someone else to celebrate Tamp, Workhouse, Anonymous, C.U.P. and the magnificent Nag’s Head. Anyway, you can all tell me how wrong I am in the comments, so here goes.

1. Bakery House


What is there left to say about Bakery House? Open for nearly four years now, the proudly independent Lebanese restaurant has got pretty much everything right from the moment it opened, and standards show no signs of dropping. In warm weather you can grab a shawarma wrap from the counter and go eat it in the sunshine, but the true riches come from eating in. The chicken livers are terrific, the falafel light and simultaneously crunchy and fluffy, the boneless baby chicken a thing of wonder. Whatever main course you have comes with rice rich with vegetables and spice and salad perfectly dressed with lemon and mint, complete with tomato and crisp radish.

I held a readers’ lunch there in January and they dished up a whole roast lamb, on a bed of rice full of minced lamb and, it seemed, whole sticks of cinnamon; I daydreamed about it for weeks.

82 London Street, RG1 4SJ.

2. Bhel Puri House


Again, Bhel Puri House is a restaurant I’ve written about many times but it’s so criminally underrated that it deserves another mention here. For a long time it was Reading’s only vegetarian restaurant, and it remains one of the town’s only convincing small plates restaurants. All that and you can eat outside in the sunshine, in a courtyard it shares with the George Hotel and Workhouse Coffee.

There are so many dishes it’s hard to know where to start, but the Punjabi samosas are huge, tasty and crazily good value and the crispy bhajia (spiced, fried slices of potato, their pungency offset with a sweet carrot chutney) are superb. Paneer is irresistable, either dry and caramelised with chilli or served Manchurian style in a sweeter, stickier sauce. And the samosa chaat, pictured above, is a riot of colour, flavour and texture. Who needs a faddish meat-free burger when you can try a vada pav?

Yield Hall Lane, RG1 2HF.

3. Clay’s Hyderabadi Kitchen


Right, let’s get this disclaimer out of the way first: as I’ve explained elsewhere, I have never reviewed Clay’s because they know who I am and I would describe the owners as friends. You could quite easily argue that this damages my impartiality, so if you’ve never been to Clay’s you may be a little sceptical about their presence on this list, and that is of course your prerogative. I can’t blame you – I would also be pretty dubious, but believe me, if anything Clay’s had to meet an even higher standard to make it on to this list. And I can appreciate the ways in which the restaurant still needs work: the room can be a little murky, loud and poorly lit, the service still lacks a little warmth and authority.

Anyway, by however high a bar you set, Clay’s has to be on a list of this kind, and if you have been there, I suspect you’ll completely understand why I couldn’t omit them. I think Clay’s does some of the best and most exciting food Reading has ever seen, especially the starters which are simply a brilliant range of small but perfectly-formed dishes (I’d love to see Clay’s open a small plates restaurant one day).

From the fish fry to the incredibly dry, smoky chicken livers, from the chicken 65 to the creamy, indulgent paneer majestic there is an almost bewildering plethora of flavours to sample and enjoy (my tip: order one or two starters more than you have diners, and share everything). And that’s before we ever get to the mains – the hot and sour monkfish, the now almost legendary bhuna venison and possibly my personal favourite, the red chicken curry. Anyway, you know what I’m talking about because I suspect you’ve already eaten at Clay’s by now, haven’t you?

45 London Street, RG1 4PS.

4. Fidget & Bob


Possibly the most unusual beast on this list, Fidget & Bob is out in the wilds of Kennet Island and truly is an all-day venue, going effortlessly from a breakfast and brunch cafe during the day to a little restaurant in the evening. It might well have the best front of house in Reading at the moment, it certainly has the best Twitter feed and it announces daily specials which regularly make me want to drop everything, hop on the number 60 bus and make a beeline there for dinner (the char siu, a regular Tuesday offering, is a particular culprit).

I went for brunch recently and you can see the picture above – the most beautifully buttery scrambled eggs (from Beechwood Farm, who supply another venue on this list), properly cooked mushrooms, wonderfully buttered toast and bacon cooked just right. A lot of my Twitter followers have raved about Fidget & Bob’s brunches, but I’m ashamed it took me so long to try them for myself. Many of the beers are local, the wines are top-notch, the coffee is excellent and in summer, the outside space will be lovely and buzzy well into the evening. What more could you possibly want?

The Piazza, Whale Avenue, Kennet Island, RG2 0GX.

5. Geo Café


Another disclaimer: over the past couple of years Keti and Zezva, who run Geo Café in the site which used to be Nomad Bakery, have become friends and so you should take everything I’m about to say with a pinch of (Svaneti) salt. And again, I am more than aware of the areas Geo Café still needs to work on – service can be a bit thin on the ground, and they don’t always cope brilliantly with high volumes of customers. But the food redeems so much that I stand by my recommendation: Georgian food is the great unsung world cuisine (although maybe not for long) and there are many eye-opening dishes at Geo Café that you simply can’t eat anywhere else – not only in Reading but, generally speaking, in England.

The classic dish is the chicken wrap – lots of chicken thigh spiced with ajika, served in a well-assembled wrap packed with salad, baje (a sauce made from walnut), salad and lemon juice. Anybody who has had it at Blue Collar knows just what a good dish this is, and the Geo version comes close to hitting those heights. But there are also aubergine wraps, all sorts of skillets using the café’s excellent sourdough and of course, the wonder that is khachapuri – a flatbread stuffed with a gooey cheese which is a blend of cheddar, mozzarella and feta (made by the café, because they can’t get the Georgian cheese which is normally used).

Anyone who has followed Geo Café (or Georgian Feast, or Caucasian Spice Box, or whether they’ll be called next month) on their journey from the Horn to the Turk’s to the Island via countless food markets will be delighted to hear that they’ve finally found the home they deserve. Oh, and the cakes (from the bakery upstairs) are pretty good too.

10 Prospect Street, RG4 8JG.

6. Kobeda Palace


Kobeda Palace is a scruffy, unpretentious, popular Afghan grill house down the Oxford Road. It is decidedly no-frills, its neighbour Da Village looks swankier and glossier, but I absolutely love it all the same. They make the naan on site – big, stretched, fluffy things with bubbled crusts. The kobeda kebabs are decent, as are the chicken tikka kebabs and the chops. And the karahi chicken, a red, oily, warming, ginger-strewn miracle of a dish, is one of the finest things you can eat in Reading. Order it, take the meat off the bone before you start and eat it with a naan, enjoying the bustle around you. There’s no alcohol licence, but when a restaurant on the Oxford Road has no alcohol licence that’s just the cosmos telling you to stop at the Nag’s Head on your way home.

409-411 Oxford Road, RG30 1HA

7. Pepe Sale


After the demise of Dolce Vita last year, Pepe Sale might be Reading’s longest-running restaurant, and it really is a class act. Eating there is an impressively timeless experience – the service is quite brilliant, even when the place is extremely busy, the room has been gently updated (it still looks a tad dated, but nowhere near as much as it was), the menu still has tons of Sardinian classics but there are always specials to give regular diners numerous reasons to return. The suckling pig, only available on Friday and Saturday nights, has rightly attained almost mythical status but there are so many other things to enjoy, including chicken stuffed with mozzarella and wrapped in pancetta, beautifully tender veal in cream sauce and countless splendid pasta dishes.

Pepe Sale, as I’m often given to saying, was my first ever review on the blog and when I published it, one of my detractors piped up. “Pepe Sale is just an okay neighbourhood Italian restaurant” she said. How wrong can you be?

3 Queens Walk, RG1 7QF

8. Sapana Home


Sapana Home needs little introduction by now – heaven knows I’ve written about it enough times. The little Nepalese restaurant on Queen Victoria Street has been there for what seems like forever, and the clientele is an interesting mixture of Nepalese diners and non-Nepalese customers who are in the know. I’ve heard criticisms that their momo are frozen (and it’s true that the ones at the long-lamented Namaste Kitchen were even better) but really, on a cold day when you have ten pan-fried chicken momo in front of you I find I don’t give a monkey’s. Every time I put a picture of them on Instagram, I get a chorus of likes: it really is almost impossible to look at it and not want to eat them immediately.

There are other attractions. The chilli chicken and the chicken fry are both delicious, on a good day the chow mein is quite lovely and I do have a soft spot for the samosa chaat here, all sweet tamarind, crunchy sev and red onion. The service, too, is more friendly than you might expect, and they still do one of the best mango lassi in town. Judge all you like, but I ate there on Valentine’s Day.

8 Queen Victoria Street, RG1 1TG

9. Shed


Shed was a quite shocking omission two years ago: all I can say is that I don’t know what I was thinking. It still does Reading’s mightiest toasted sandwiches – “The Top One”, all cheese chorizo and jalapeño, and “Tuna Turner”, which is tuna mayo, cheese and, err, also jalapeño. But the salads are excellent too, as is “Saucy Friday” when you can have, say, scotch bonnet chilli chicken with rice and peas, coleslaw and macaroni cheese. The service is outstanding, Pete and Lydia are almost annoyingly likeable, the milkshakes are great and they do some of the best loose leaf tea in town.

If I was being picky I sometimes wish the room itself (upstairs, it transforms into cocktail bar Milk in the evenings) was a bit lighter and the furniture was a little more comfortable, but I’m well aware that says more about my age than Shed’s beauty. It remains one of the best places in Reading to have lunch, and we’re lucky to have them.

8 Merchants Place, RG1 1DT

10. Tuscany


N.B. Tuscany closed in May 2019, sadly. But there’s always Kungfu Kitchen.

Last but not least, the delights of the tiny Tuscany, tucked away on the Oxford Road. A handful of covers and a menu which basically consists of heading up to the counter and choose your toppings by pretending that you’re doing the numbers round on Countdown (“I’ll have two from the top, Carol, and six from anywhere else”). The pizza bases are really good, the pricing is ridiculously keen and the service is quite lovely – and many readers of the blog have told me about wonderful evenings they’ve had there after picking up a couple of cans or a bottle of wine from one of the nearby shops (no alcohol licence, but they don’t charge for corkage).

I’m long overdue a return visit, and this story maybe illustrates how much I found I cared about the place: I went a little while back for dinner with a friend to find the shutters down and the lights off. I went on Twitter to vent my despair, and felt a huge sense of relief when someone kindly pointed out to me that Tuscany was closed on Wednesdays. I’ve rarely been so happy to be wrong.

399 Oxford Road, RG30 1HA

Da Village

On By ediblereadingIn Reviews

I remember being irked when Comptoir Libanais opened in its fancy new space on the Oracle Riverside. It felt like such a lazy attempt to steal custom from my beloved Bakery House: didn’t the people going there know that just across the IDR you could get much better, far cheaper Lebanese food from a proudly independent restaurant which had been there for years? Was being able to drink really enough consolation for such underwhelming food?

Subscribe to continue reading

Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.