Tag: Service

Restaurant review: Pick Up Point, Swindon

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Pick Up Point closed in July 2024. I’ve left the review up for posterity.

At the end of last summer, in a move which surprised me as much as anybody, I got on a train and went to boldly review where no blog had been before. Swindon, to be precise. I voyaged to Swindon’s Old Town and found a brilliant enclave of great coffee, craft beer, ice cream along with a Victorian park that made the Forbury look a tad lacking. And I also found, returning to Old Town institution Los Gatos, a superb tapas restaurant of exactly the kind Reading has always lacked. I loved the whole experience, and I promised myself I’d be back before too long.

It took me four months, but last weekend I found myself in Swindon again, alighting at its unloveable station and walking round the corner to grab a bus into Old Town, one bound for the splendidly named Middle Wichel. It wasn’t exactly the same personnel as last time – I was seeing my old friend Dave, but our mutual friend Al couldn’t join us. And it wasn’t the same itinerary, either: the last time I was in Swindon summer was rallying one final time and you could eat ice cream opposite Ray’s, have an al fresco coffee in the Town Gardens. On this visit, we had to forego those pleasures, but even the regret of having to do so reminded me how fetching Old Town is when the weather is fine.

Never mind. Many of the fundamentals were unchanged. I met Dave at the brilliant Pour Bois for a latte, and then we beetled off to the Hop Kettle tap room for the first of many gorgeous beers. Firmly ensconced, we proceeded to do what we’ve been doing on a regular basis for over thirty years, shooting the breeze about all sorts. I handed him his belated fiftieth birthday present and heard about his celebratory trip to Cologne, we talked about the rapidly solidifying plans for my wedding this year, and then we just got on to talking about everything and nothing: his family, my family, his work, my work, the future and the good old days.

It was all perfectly in harmony: no conversational heavy lifting to be done, and no awkward silences, just the latest instalment in a long, meandering conversation which has lasted all of my adult life. We both know where the bodies are buried, when to talk and when to listen, when to be serious and when to take the piss. It was lovely: when you have a friend that old, and that good, you can do that stuff anywhere. You could catch up in a Wetherspoons and still have a thoroughly agreeable time. But it struck me, as the hours flew by on that winter afternoon, that I would have struggled to think of a better venue for it than Old Town.

The other thing that was different about this visit to Swindon was that, much as I love Los Gatos, I had somewhere else in my sights for dinner. I’d been tipped off about Pick Up Point, a burger joint literally next door to Hop Kettle which is only open in the evenings. Chef Josh West started out cooking burgers at the tap room four years ago, but opened his own restaurant in late 2021. I couldn’t find out much about it online – Swindon might have even less local media than we do – but their well-curated Instagram made everything look terrific. The clincher though was that my Swindon man in the know, Donovan Rosema of excellent local roaster Light Bulb Coffee, rated the place. That was good enough for me.

It’s a very assured, very polished space. “This is more London than Swindon” was Dave’s verdict as we looked around, and I think that was a fair summary. With dark walls dressed with interesting art, an attractive zinc-topped bar, conspiratorial lighting, low tables and booths, it was more Brooklyn than Bassett. I think there was a second dining room out back, although I didn’t get a look at it. Having said all that, my one reservation about it was that the bit of the restaurant where they seated us had higher tables and – a bit of a bugbear of mine, this – backless stools. It felt a little like an afterthought compared to the lower tables elsewhere, and I did look enviously at the better stools up at the bar.

You might think this doesn’t really matter for casual dining, or that the dining room wasn’t designed for two men on either side of their fiftieth birthday, and you might have a point.

Pick Up Point knows how to put a menu together. I realised in the run up to this visit that the last time I reviewed a burger restaurant was Bristol’s Asado, just over a year ago, and since then I think I’ve only had burgers in Honest. And I like Honest, but their choice of burgers always feels limited, especially if you don’t fancy whatever special they have on. By contrast, Pick Up Point has half a dozen beefburgers, one chicken burger and one vegetarian or vegan option, along with a couple of specials. And they all have something a little different about them – one with pancetta and blue cheese, another with kimchi and gochujang. Even the names – “Cease & Desist”, “Heisenberger” – steered clear of the dreary ladz puns you sometimes get in this kind of establishment.

Burgers are between twelve and fourteen pounds, not including fries, so slightly more expensive than the likes of Honest. But the menu achieved what you always want a menu to manage: it intrigued me. And the sides on offer did too – not just fries, wings and slaw, although even those had interesting variations and additions. The wings were Korean, the slaw came with sweet chilli and coriander. I had looked at a menu online which suggested they did confit potatoes as well as fries, and I was very excited about trying that, but on the day something else was in its place. So we ordered that instead, along with another side and a couple of burgers.

Service was outstanding throughout, if endearingly amused that these two duffers had chanced upon their restaurant. Of course everybody was impossibly younger and cooler than me, but we’re reaching the stage where I could walk into most restaurants in Britain and that might be the case, so I’m trying not to lose too much sleep over it. I couldn’t persuade Dave to go crazy and have a rum punch (and the next morning I was very thankful that he talked me out of it) so I had a half of Kellerbier from Bristol’s Moor Beer and Dave, more sensible than me, went for a ginger beer.

Our food came out about twenty-five minutes after we sat down, which I thought was nicely paced. I had chosen the “Hand Of God”, which came with chimichurri and smoked paprika mayo, and I thought it was absolutely exceptional. The burger was tender, well seasoned and had a marvellous char to it, the chimichurri and the smoked paprika complemented it beautifully. It was so good, in fact, that it’s surprisingly difficult to write about: happiness, as they say, writes white. And I’m worried that some of the things I loved about it are going to sound like faint praise, but maybe you’ll read them and agree with me so here goes.

I loved the fact that it wasn’t messy, that nothing fell out, that I didn’t feel like I was playing food Jenga every time I took a bite, or pushing what was left out of the comforting embrace of the bun. I loved the fact that I could pick it up and eat it with my hands, the way you used to be able to do with all burgers before they became bloated parodies of themselves. Less is more, it turns out, and I was delighted to pay a little bit more for something that not only tasted fantastic but was a pleasure to eat. I think that’s what edgier restaurant reviewers mean when they say – prepare to cringe – that a dish “eats well”. It doesn’t eat well, you do. But I do appreciate the underlying sentiment.

Dave had gone for one of the specials, a Guinness rarebit burger. This was heftier – a half pounder smothered in the rarebit, resting on a huge slab of onion. This looked a bit more challenging to eat, or would have been for me anyway, but Dave ploughed through undeterred. He’d told me earlier that day that his latest blood test had suggested he needed to work on bringing his cholesterol down again, but happily he was taking a day off from that. “The way they’ve got the Guinness flavour into this is really clever” was his verdict. Dave is not the ideal person to review restaurants with because 9 times out of 10 we’ll order the same dish, which you can’t really do when you’re writing a place up. This was the 1 time out of 10 when we didn’t, and I was a smidge envious.

The two sides were glorious. First of all, in place of those confit potatoes they served smashed potatoes with aioli. Looking at the picture below, aioli with smashed potatoes might be a more accurate description, but it was another fabulous dish, the spuds with plenty of texture, the golden aioli with a pronounced honk of garlic and a little rosemary strewn for good measure. I think with hindsight, two side dishes might not have been enough. One of these certainly wasn’t.

Even better were the crispy pork belly bites. They were crispy where you wanted them to be and yielding where you didn’t, they came carpeted with sesame and coriander, sitting in a pool of soy and ginger and they were pretty much a perfect example of this kind of thing. I read an interview with the guy behind the Pick Up Point just as they opened where he said he was a tinkerer. “I’m always experimenting, the menu is likely to change hourly” he said. I doubt he still does that (who has the time?) but even if he does he should keep his mitts off this dish: it should stay on the menu in perpetuity.

There was only one item on the dessert menu, a chocolate mousse with whipped cream. I was enormously tempted by it, as I always am when it comes to chocolate mousse. But I abandoned any plans of eating it when I realised that Dave, like me, was wondering what the Korean chicken burger (the “Seoul Survivor”) tasted like and was prepared to split one with me. So we flagged down our server and asked – if she didn’t mind, and if it wasn’t too weird – if we could order one to share. She smiled indulgently at us.

“Of course, that’s no problem. I’ll get them to cut it in half for you too.”

As she walked away I looked at Dave and I knew he was thinking what I was thinking.

“She thinks…”

“…that we’re a couple? Yep. Happens every time.”

My picture of the Korean chicken burger is even worse than most of my burger photographs because it shows you nothing. You don’t get to see the magnificent crunchy, craggy coating or the chicken, breast not thigh in this case, underneath. You don’t get to see the kimchi properly, or the gochujang. Really, it’s just evidence that we ordered it and that, ever so nicely for the two weird middle aged men who seemed a little high on life, the kitchen did indeed neatly bisect it for us. But I promise you it did have all those things – crunch and give, fire and tang – and I thought it was really beautiful.

I did think about having the mousse after that, but I decided against it. I couldn’t persuade Dave, and I knew that I would have more joy talking him into a couple more beers at the Tuppenny next door. His loved ones were in London watching Depeche Mode at the O2, and as it happens my loved one was too, and I reckoned we had another couple of hours of catching up ahead of us, even if it would pass in the blink of an eye. Our dinner came to sixty pounds, not including tip, but bear in mind we ordered three burgers that came to about two thirds of that.

I often publish reviews of places outside Reading with a little trepidation. I know some people feel like they’re hoodwinked into reading them, or don’t really care about restaurants without an RG postcode or an 0118 phone number. And I end up trying to convince you of the relevance by bringing it all back home at the end. And I will do that, in a second, but really – Pick Up Point is worth going to Swindon for. Get the train on a Saturday, have a few beers beforehand and make the time to eat here. It’s a cracking thing to do – with friends, with loved ones, even on your own. I genuinely think you wouldn’t regret it.

But there’s another reason to recommend it, which is that I think Honest so dominates the burger landscape in Reading that we don’t get anywhere, really, like Pick Up Point. 7Bone is a greasier, sloppier, more American affair, but it’s moved to Phantom now, further out of town. Gordon Ramsey Street Burger is much more well behaved than the man itself, and better than I expected it to be, but it’s not exciting, nor is it independent. Some places, like the Lyndhurst, don’t specialise in burgers but happen to do some very good ones.

But Pick Up Point is genuinely a place the likes of which we don’t have in Reading, and the last time I had a burger in Reading that matched what Pick Up Point can do it was from the sadly departed Meat Juice, at Blue Collar. I would have hopped on a train to Swindon to try Meat Juice’s burgers again, I’ll gladly repeat the journey to go back to Pick Up Point. That I happen to have one of my oldest friends a few miles down the road is just the icing on the cake.

Pick Up Point – 8.0
52 Devizes Road, Swindon, SN1 4BG

https://thepickuppoint.com

Restaurant review: Hala Lebanese

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Last month, after a very successful ER readers’ lunch at Kungfu Kitchen – a total of fifty-six guests in attendance and what felt like about the same number of different dishes to try – the hardcore lunch-goers were sitting in the luxurious surrounds of Park House up on campus, shooting the breeze. It was early evening and even though it was right at the beginning of December it felt, to me at least, like the start of the festive season.

I always love that bit, when the event has gone well and everybody is full and happy and I get to have a few pints and chat to all the people I haven’t yet caught up with. The readers’ lunches have been going for six years now and although there are always newcomers, many of my regulars have been coming along for a fair old time, a few since the very beginning. 

On this particular occasion I found myself in conversation with Jonathan, a newbie who very specifically wanted to talk to me about a bugbear of his: how come there weren’t any good neighbourhood restaurants where he lived in east Reading? I thought about it, and told him I had to agree. I said that since O Portugues had mysteriously closed in the spring there was nothing that even came close.

You could eat in the likes of Rizouq on the Wokingham Road, I supposed, as it had a few tables, and I’d heard suggestions that a burger joint, Pattie N’ Pulled, was operating out of the Roebuck (it looks like they’ve since moved on). But apart from that, and the artist formerly known as the Garden Of Gulab, restaurants were thin on the ground. I thought that would be the end of the conversation, but Jonathan wanted to talk about it in more detail, as if I had the power to change it.

I do get it though. As a proud East Reading resident myself, albeit one living far closer to the centre, it is an enduring mystery that it’s such a dead zone for restaurants. Caversham is well served, and Whitley and Katesgrove have a handful of places. Tilehurst, with the addition of spots like The Switch and Vesuvio, is seeing a bit of a resurgence and the Oxford Road has always been a crucible of culinary invention. Even dear old Woodley, where I grew up, has a handful of restaurants worth a visit.

By comparison, the Wokingham Road feels like slim pickings. It has takeaways, and two biryani places, and the likes of Earley Café and Chaiiwala, but nothing you could describe as a neighbourhood restaurant. It’s almost as if the people living near Palmer Park are expected to hop on the 17, walk to Kungfu Kitchen, settle for the Hope And Bear or, if all else fails, fall into Ye Babam Ye. If it wasn’t for the likes of Smash N Grab and Cake & Cream, you might struggle to see redeeming features at all. And Smash N Grab, sad to say, has its last ever service tomorrow.

I did remember, though, talking to Jonathan that there was one possible contender in the form of Hala Lebanese. It opened last June on the Wokingham Road, just past the stretch of shops, in a spot formerly occupied by another Lebanese restaurant, Alona. I still remembered Alona, partly for the astroturf but mainly for the wobbly shawarma that had slightly traumatised my dining companion John and me. I told Jonathan I would get to Hala as soon as I could and, what with Christmas and Covid, I think I’ve pretty much kept my promise: last Saturday Zoë and I trekked up the Wokingham Road to give it a whirl.

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2023: The Year In Review

On 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.

Restaurant review: Chequers, Bath

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I hadn’t been to Bath since before the pandemic, so when arranging a leisurely weekend lunch with my old friend Dave it sprung to mind as a break from the norm. Especially as that norm largely involves him visiting me in Reading and complaining at length that Swindon has nothing anywhere near as good (a hypothesis I tested a few months back: it isn’t the whole story).

My relative ignorance of Bath is largely a consequence of the ridiculous train fares: it costs pretty much the same exorbitant amount to sit on the train for fifteen more minutes and get off at Temple Meads, so that’s what I’ve done every time. And otherwise I usually go to Oxford, which as we’ve established is cheap, convenient and full of good places to eat. But I’ve been hearing an increasing buzz about a number of interesting restaurants springing up in Bath, so I thought this would be an auspicious opportunity to try somewhere properly new for a change.

But where to go? Even a little research uncovered an embarrassment of riches. There’s the likes of Upstairs At Landrace and Beckford Bottle Shop and Canteen, which have attracted the attention of various broadsheet hacks, and Wilks, the formerly Michelin-starred former Bristol restaurant which has recently relocated. There’s excellent fish at the Scallop Shell, or wine and small plates at Corkage. And finally there’s Chequers (not The Chequers, if their website and social media are to be believed), a gastropub near the Royal Crescent that won a Bib Gourmand from Michelin this year. 

Well, I say finally but actually the list goes on and on: I could also have gone high end at The Elder or institution Menu Gordon Jones, or eaten more casually at any of Pintxo, Bath’s branch of Bosco Pizzeria, Yak Yeti Yak (which celebrates its twentieth birthday next year) or much-loved Italian Sotto Sotto. Why had I never reviewed anywhere in Bath before? And why didn’t it have a restaurant blog of its own? It was baffling.

So why Chequers this week? Well, I’d like to say that it’s because I reviewed all the options and wanted somewhere classic and timeless, untouched by the ebbing tides of small plates, natural wine and craft beer. I’d like to say, as I have before, that the Bib Gourmand remains, in this country, far more useful than stars or the Top 100 Restaurants or Gastropubs or the proclamations of some blogging tosspot or other.

But in truth I went to Chequers (the lack of a The is going to get annoying, I can tell: we’ll get through it together) for a far simpler reason. I gave a list to my friend Dave, asked him to pick and he chose Chequers because it was the only only he had been to before. In hindsight, I probably should have predicted this outcome: Dave has raised risk aversion to an art form, never encountered an airport he didn’t want to arrive at four hours before his flight was scheduled to take off. He is a man who uses the L word constantly with his wife and all his close friends: unfortunately, it stands for logistics.

Anyway, from the outside it was hard to imagine it could be a bad choice. It’s in a particularly attractive part of the city, just off from the beautiful Georgian sweep of The Circus, and Rivers Street is so fetching that even before I’d set foot through the front door of Chequers I found myself wishing it was my local. And inside it was all tasteful and classy, wood-panelled walls in muted Farrow and Ball shades and a stunning parquet floor. I say I wished it was my local, but I couldn’t say whether it was one of those gastropubs that was still a pub, or whether you’d have to be eating to pay it a visit.

Not that it mattered in our case – my friends Dave, Al and I had made our way there with one thing on our mind: luncheon. We were given an especially nice table in a little three-sided nook off from one of the two dining rooms, with comfy banquettes and a nice view out across the pub.

The menu, too, was more cheffy than pubby. The only real concession to pub food was the presence of burger and chips or steak and chips, but other than that it was a real beauty pageant of great sounding dishes, all of which you could comfortably order. On any other day I could have been telling you about the octopus with romesco, or the thyme roasted bone marrow, the saag aloo fritters or the pork tenderloin with Stornaway black pudding. Starters jostled around the ten pound mark, mains ran a much wider gamut from seventeen to thirty.

So agonising choices all round, posed by a kitchen that seemed, on paper at least, to know exactly what it was doing. And although I’d say most of it was squarely Modern European, little hints – a ponzo cured yolk here, tamarind glazed oyster mushrooms there – spoke of a little culinary wanderlust.

Matters were further complicated by a specials board including roasted monkfish tail with sobrasada, or brill with seaweed butter. Fish courses were well represented in general and I should also add, because I never talk about this enough, that there were two credible meat-free options for both starters and mains, more than half of which appeared to be vegan.

We had plenty to catch up on, so it was some time before we got our shit together and placed our order. But in the meantime we occupied ourselves with a snack from the specials board, pork scratchings with apple compote. These were wonderful, light, Quaverish things which were somehow completely lacking in grease but still left your fingers shiny by the time you’d finished.

If I was being pedantic I’d say these were more pork rinds than pork scratchings, but it’s not like I was demanding a refund. The apple dip, almost a deep, fruity ketchup, went brilliantly. Our server had brought over a bottle of Fleurie, the fancy face of Beaujolais, and it was absolutely divine with enough complexity, we thought, to stand up to what we planned to order. We clinked glasses, with a good feeling about what lay ahead.

One thing Dave loves even more than logistics is venison, so when the menu offered multiple opportunities to eat it he was dead set on taking those opportunities. I might have inwardly rolled my eyes at him – predictable, risk averse Dave – and then he showed me up as the judgmental twat I am by ordering a phenomenal dish. A solitary venison faggot, deep and delicious, was plonked on a puddle of parsnip puree, itself ringed with jus, and crowned with parsnip crisps.

But the thing that made this so enviable was the salsa verde which anointed it. Venison with dark fruits or chocolate is a tried and tested way to tease out the characteristics of that singular meat. But salse verde? A new one on me, and downright brilliant. Dave claims he let me try some for completeness’ sake, for the review. But I think he just wanted to provoke starter envy.

I couldn’t complain too much, though, because Al and I had both plumped for an equally admirable dish. Lamb neck terrine (which we couldn’t help but pronounce as nectarine to our server, with predictably unamusing consequences) was a really wonderful, earthy choice. But that denseness was offset with a superb lightness of touch elsewhere.

Pea purée, all hyper-saturated colour and high-contrast flavour, was a perfect accompaniment. The terrine was studded with cubes of confit aubergine and the whole thing was set off with a tumble of girolles. The menu said they were pickled, but if they were it had been done very subtly. This cost nine pounds, and was every bit as tasty as it was decorous.

Now, normally my rule when I go on duty is to order something different from my companions. But I was feeling mutinous that day, no doubt a hangover from week after week of sitting across the table from Zoë watching her demolish my first choice on the menu, so for once I decided to go easy on myself and order the venison, as I knew Dave would do.

And as it turns out Al went for the same thing too, which I think amused our server. She was brilliant throughout the lunch by the way – fantastic at looking after us, hugely engaging and clearly enthusiastic about Chequers and what it does. She twinkled indulgently at the three of us from start to finish, although whether it was from genuine entertainment or pity I suspect we will never know.

So was the venison good enough to justify three separate orders? Well, it depends rather who you ask. Dave loved it and demolished it without complaint, Al did too. I was slightly more circumspect. Although I’m not sure why because every component worked. On paper it was a smash hit, the loin beautifully cooked, still a ruddy pink where it should have been.

And the cavolo nero was a ferrous joy – it’s one of my favourite veg and a surefire sign that autumn is well under way, even if it was still warm outside in November. Little wedges of golden beetroot and scattered blackberries added earthiness and sweetness. But the real star of the show, billed as a hash brown of all things, was a hefty brick of shredded potato, pressed and fried until burnished and crispy, a proper golden wonder. I found myself enjoying this more than the venison, although I don’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one – like it or not, it was the spud I found myself ekeing out.

So why did I like it rather than love it? Well, believe it or not it was a little too restrained for me. The jus, such as it was, was gorgeous (black garlic was involved, apparently) but the dish needed more of it. Venison is a dry meat at the best of times and this needed more sauce to bring everything together. Without that it was a bunch of well-behaved elements badly in search of an overarching theme (maybe, one day, I’ll make it into Pseud’s Corner).

It was also, at thirty pounds, the most expensive dish on the menu: I couldn’t help thinking of the previous day, when dinner at the Lyndhurst had involved pheasant breast, a croquette of shredded pheasant leg, a slab of confit potato, parsnip puree and a lake of gravy for considerably less money. The Lyndhurst might never get a Bib Gourmand, but for quality and value they can comfortably beat at least one pub that’s got one.

The choice of desserts was more compact than that of mains and starters, and because we all fancied two desserts we picked one each and one to share. The one in the middle of the table was Chequers’ pavlova, made with Pernod roasted fig and granola. I have to say that I’m glad this was the one we shared, because if I’d had one to myself I would have wanted to order another dessert to make up for the disappointment.

I love Pernod, I love figs, I love the sweetness of roasted fennel. This should have been right up my alley, but the Pernod was overpowering, brutally harsh and bitter. I had a spoonful and told the others they were welcome to it. Such a pity, though, because the meringue and the Chantilly cream were both outstanding.

My own personal dessert, although better than that, still didn’t scale the heights. I’m a sucker for a chocolate cremeux, and Chequers’ rendition was a glossy marvel. But serving it with a giant nugget of honeycomb that I struggled to break up with a spoon, half fearing that it would wang across the room, wasn’t a helpful combination. Blackberries made another appearance, pickled this time, although they’d been pickled with the same diffident touch as the girolles earlier on.

Maybe I was getting curmudgeonly by this point but I also didn’t understand why they’d festooned the whole thing with foliage. It made it look like something you’d find on the forest floor, if somebody’s owner hadn’t bothered to clean it up.

This might be sour grapes, because Al and Dave ordered something I never order, sticky toffee pudding, and it was the best sticky toffee pudding I’ve only ever had a spoonful of. I sniffily thought it was overkill serving it with salted caramel and a brandy snap biscuit on top and stem ginger nestled in the brandy snap. Well, this just goes to show that I know the square root of fuck all, because it was a miraculous dessert – every element working on its own, but completely transfigured by juxtaposition. The salted caramel sauce alone was worth the price of admission alone, the best I can remember (and I’ve tried a fair few).

“Why do people only say cheers with drinks?” said Dave as, thin-lipped and resentful, I took a sip of my dessert wine. “People ought to say cheers after the first mouthful of a dessert like this.” Smug wanker, I thought.

All good things must come to an end, and once we had digested, discussed and cogitated it was time to settle up and make our way across the city in search of somewhere to drink more and talk nonsense. Even then, in the back of my mind, I was thinking that Chequers, with that table, that view and the prospect that if I stayed another hour I might be able to excuse ordering a sticky toffee pudding to myself, was a decidedly difficult place to leave.

But the beers and banquettes at Kingsmead Street Bottle were calling to us, so it was time to go. Our meal came to just over two hundred and twenty pounds, not including tip. You could spend less, I’m sure, if you didn’t order multiple desserts and a trio of glasses of late harvest Semillon, but I didn’t leave feeling mugged.

A really beautiful pub doing really wonderful food is one of life’s great pleasures, as is a Saturday lunchtime spent in one with old friends,a good bottle of red, gossip and food envy. In that sense, Chequers was only ever going to be a success. And yet I do find myself weighing it against other places with similar credentials. I liked it far better than the Black Rat in Winchester which lost a Michelin star and lost its way. I’m not sure I preferred it to Oxford’s Magdalen Arms, where the prices are a little less steep and the food a lot less pristine.

And, of course, the nearest thing we have closer to home is the Lyndhurst: I’m sure if you picked it up and dropped it in Bath it would finally get the plaudits it always seems to miss out on. But nevertheless it’s impossible to dispute that Chequers has got so many things right, from the beauty of its dining room to the sheer quality of its welcome. And if I didn’t love everything I ate, I could appreciate that all of it, with the exception of that pavlova, was accomplished, clever and skilfully done.

So here goes one of those positive reviews that somehow, even so, isn’t quite positive enough: I thought Chequers was very good. I wouldn’t go to Bath just to eat there, but if I was in Bath, and I wasn’t in the business of constantly finding new places so I can write about them, I would definitely book another table. If ever you find yourself in Bath, I think you could do an awful lot worse.

Chequers – 8.3
50 Rivers St, Bath, BA1 2QA
01225 428924

https://chequersbath.net

Restaurant review: Noah’s, Bristol

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I knew a number of things about Noah’s, the newish fish and seafood restaurant that opened in Bristol at the start of May, from the research I did prior to visiting. I knew that it was run by a married couple, Daniel and Joie Rosser, and that their family ran the highly-regarded Scallop Shell just down the road in Bath. I knew that the place was named after their son, who turned one shortly after it opened. I knew that it occupied an iconic site in Bristol which used to double as Sid’s Café in Only Fools And Horses, although I had to admit I didn’t remember that at all. I knew the views out towards Clifton Suspension Bridge were meant to be quite something. And last of all, I knew that it was allegedly right under a flyover.

I didn’t really believe that last one could be true, but it was. It was a bracing half hour walk from our hotel, past M Shed and all the appealing restaurants of Wapping Wharf, and then down a long, unlovely road that ran the full length of Spike Island, until you felt like you were somewhat in the middle of nowhere. It was one of those walks that felt far longer than it was, drab and featureless, and I found myself wishing I’d taken a taxi (if you go to Noah’s, take a taxi). And then, at the end of the rainbow, there was indeed a flyover with Noah’s nestled underneath it, looking beautiful and incongruous.

It was mainly incongruous by virtue of being so beautiful. The outside, all wooden boards, tastefully curving in at the base, looked like the hull of a boat. And that motif continued inside, with big picture windows and portholes, bare wood floors and blue banquettes. It was a gorgeous, serene dining room, wonderfully lit, and managed to be vaguely nautical without ever approaching naff, in itself a considerable achievement. 

We were some of the first customers there at half past twelve and our welcome, from co-owner Joie, was warm and genuine. We took a generously sized table in the middle of the restaurant – the late morning sun was intense through those huge windows – and recovered from the walk, enjoying the space and that feeling of calm. I was concerned for them but I needn’t have been, because over the next couple of hours the place filled up nicely. Although it was an unseasonably warm autumn day I could see from the decking area outside that this place would come into its own again next summer.

One of the many things to like about Noah’s menu is that it changes daily: I had been watching it on their Instagram stories so I knew that it shifted subtly from day to day depending on what the restaurant had in and how they’d decided to cook it. Fish tended to be from Brixham or Newlyn, mussels were from St Austell but the menu always specifies where everything was caught.

Small changes notwithstanding, the spine of the menu remained constant – mains in particular involving either fried fish and chips or grilled fish with either chips or new potatoes. Simple pleasures, especially when done exceptionally well. They also have a very reasonable set lunch (which they offer even at weekends), called the Lock Keeper’s Lunch, which comes with a cup of tea and a teatime set menu which does not. I found that admirable too.

There was just the one meat free starter, which was vegetarian but not vegan, and a couple of fish free mains, one involving chicken and the other with chickpea fritters. So really, you do have to like fish to go to Noah’s or your choice is more limited than Tess Daly’s presenting skills. Starters were either side of the ten pound divide, mains clustered around twenty. I identified my first and second choice of main course, reasoning that I’d be happy with either of them, and then Zoë picked my first choice and somehow I still had FOMO. This happens, I should add, almost without fail.

But first, we had some starters, accompanied by a rehydrating bottle of sparkling mineral water to try and undo the damage from the night before. Bread was from Somerset bakery Lievito, who supply a few Bristol restaurants, and I rather liked it – nicely open-crumbed, although maybe lacking in a satisfactory crust. Giving three slices to a table for two is asking for trouble, though, if you ask me. The anchovy and rosemary butter needed two things, more anchovy and more butter. What there was I liked, but what there wasn’t is what I noticed.

Cod fishcakes were sold by the unit at a reasonable three pounds fifty and Zoë nabbed a couple. I don’t think you can go wrong with salt cod, and these were delicious spheres: from a distance they looked more blond than bronzed but the texture was bang on. Sitting them on a little moat of tomato vinaigrette and topping them with a dab of aioli was a terrific touch, too. My forkful passed too quickly: there wasn’t to be another.

Even better, I thought, were the prawns, plump fleshy commas fried until crispy and positively moreish. This dish was made by the addition of a superb sweet chilli sauce with proper heat, so well balanced that it showed up the shop-bought stuff as sugary, one-dimensional syrup.

My favourite of the starters, though, was all mine: gorgeous smoked sardine fillets loaded on to an airy rectangle of sourdough along with a tomato concasse with capers, all sweetness, acid and bite. Such a superb combination, and a reminder that salt and vinegar is not only the best crisp flavour but also the pairing that perfects so many fish dishes.

As it happens, the day I wrote this I had sardines on toast for lunch, decanted from a tin. Pale imitation doesn’t even begin to do justice to how many miles separate that lunch and this impeccable dish: perhaps I need to check out the Tinned Fish Market.

Mains were reasonably paced, turning up about twenty minutes after we’d dispatched our starters. Zoë had chosen ray wing, beating me to it – ordinarily I find it impossible not to order, when I see it on menus. It was a beautiful specimen, muscular and golden, and they’d presented it with the thinner side up: always the right way to do it, as there’s nothing worse than getting halfway through eating a ray wing, flipping it over and finding the metaphorical thin end of the wedge lying in wait.

From my look through Noah’s menus they tend to serve ray wing one of two ways – the classic, with brown butter and capers, or as a curveball with a curried lentil dal. On paper I prefer the former, but it was the latter on the day we visited and actually I thought it worked pretty well. Zoe let me try a little and using a knife to curl it away from the cartilage, dabbing it with the dal and eating it was a mindful, almost meditative experience. More of that please, as Anton Du Beke has taken to saying on Strictly.

And the dal really was good, although it seemed a bit bet-hedging to serve it with lentils and still give you the choice of chips or new potatoes, both of which made more sense if it had been served with brown butter and capers. Minor quibbles about an excellent dish, and one I very much wished I’d ordered.

I on the other hand had chosen another kind of classic dish: haddock and chips, with tartare sauce and mushy peas. Quintessentially British, many would say, and when done well almost unimprovable. By happy coincidence, yesterday Noah’s announced that it had made the top 5 in the 2024 National Fish & Chip Awards, which is impressive going for a restaurant that has barely been open for six months. So this would be game-changing fish and chips, wouldn’t it? Just look at the photo below: what’s not to like?

Sadly, it turned out there were things not to like. It was a good illustration of how social media isn’t real life, because the ubiquitous flat lay photograph hid a multitude of sins. Looking down from above it seemed as good a portion of fish and chips as you could hope for. And it started well – the batter on top light and frilly, crinkled and crenellated, giving way to firm flakes of fish. But underneath, it was still soggy and oily, that oil glazing the chips in a way that wasn’t enormously pleasant.

And soggy-bottomed fish aside, the chips were not great. You can’t see it in this picture, because they’re entirely obscured by the fillet of haddock, but many of them were strangely grey-edged and unappealing. Plonking the fish on top of the chips is a serving choice, not one I’d personally have taken, but it happened to conceal some slightly manky chips.

They were lacking in crunch and salt, just didn’t have enough of the good stuff and, as I said, had that disconcerting hue. I left just under half of them. That might not bother you, it might be a me thing – I’ve never eaten a crisp I haven’t thoroughly inspected first – but for me if you serve fish and chips and neither of them is spot on, that feels like an elementary mistake (in fairness, Zoë’s chips looked more appetising).

It’s a pity because the tartar sauce, served artfully in a scallop shell, was also well executed. If anything, it was a bit too posh for me – I love the properly vinegary kick of the stuff in a jar, the cheaper the better – but I could appreciate it without necessarily loving it. The mushy peas must have been pretty authentic, because I didn’t fancy them at all. That definitely is me rather than the restaurant: I can handle crushed peas at a push, or pea purée, but when it comes to smushed-up marrowfat I’m very much a disciple of the Church Of Mandelson.

Anyway, in my book the best way to get over a disappointing main, unless you’ve positively taken against a place, is to dive headlong into a great dessert. Noah’s offers three to choose from, along with ice cream or affogato, but we both spotted the chocolate mousse and from that point everything else was an irrelevance. It was huge and outstanding – a dense, thick and indulgent thing with a globe of clotted cream ice cream on top. The ice cream was completely unnecessary, which is not to say I didn’t love it or finish every last morsel.

Although we’d been on the sparkling mineral water throughout, the list of sweet wines and digestifs was too good to swerve. I was very interested in an English amaretto, made by the modishly named E18hteen Gin, but I also spotted a red dessert wine, a tannat no less, that sounded too interesting to miss out on. Red dessert wines are one of my abiding loves in the world of booze – give me a Banyuls and I’m a happy man – but I’d never had one made with tannat before. I’m used to that brooding grape in Uruguayan reds, but what would it be like in a dessert wine?

The answer, it turned out, was stellar: one of the best dessert wines I’ve had in ages, all vanilla and cocoa, perfect with the mousse. “It’s one of my favourites” said our server, “and it really goes with that dessert.” I made a note of the wine, Googled it and wondered just how many bottles to get in for Christmas.

On another day we could have dallied longer and by then I had a full picture of the kind of restaurant Noah’s was – light, tasteful, full of locals and alive with chatter and company. You wouldn’t think this was a restaurant still in its first six months, or that it had such a challenging location. That’s a tribute, I think, to just how well they’ve hit the ground running and the work they’ve put into making sure they have something for everyone. Our bill for three courses, some sparkling water and those dessert wines came to just over a hundred and ten pounds, not including tip.

As so often with reviews of Bristol restaurants, I can’t help putting my Reading hat on and thinking Do we have anything like this? and, because the answer to that question is invariably no, Do I wish we did? The answer to that second question is a resounding yes – I don’t think Reading has ever had anything like Noah’s, and if you tell me we used to have Loch Fyne I would say yes we did, but it was no great shakes.

But other things make Noah’s feel special, too, I’ve seen few restaurants go to so much trouble to find their target market, to appeal to it and to try and hit so many bases without becoming some kind of bloated, all day dining behemoth that forgets what it’s all about. And yet, when I think about Noah’s some more, the one blot on the copybook is that fish and chips. It is such a shame that it wasn’t completely at the top of its game when I went – maybe I got unlucky with the fish, or picked the one day when their potatoes weren’t the best.

But even so I can’t bring myself to knock the rating down too much because literally everything else – the room, the welcome, the menu, those starters, that ray wing, that dessert – was very close to perfect. I ate at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant in Padstow a couple of times earlier this year for my dad’s birthday and it was a lovely experience on each occasion, even if the whole of Padstow is like a Centre Parcs for affluent boomers. And yet, farther from the sea, many miles from the day boats, nestled in the concrete embrace of that incongruous flyover, I reckon Noah’s gives it, and certainly anywhere in Reading, a run for its money.

Noah’s – 8.5
1 Brunel Lock Road, Bristol, BS1 6XS
0117 4529240

https://www.noahsbristol.co.uk