Reading, Mediterranean Restaurant Guide

This “Reading institution” occupying an 18th-century tollhouse in the town centre has “had a few ups and downs over the last 25 years, but this year is back on top form with a solid menu and excellent service”. Self-taught chef owner Paul Clerehugh, a former rock guitarist with Sweet, also runs the Crooked Billet music pub in Stoke Row (see also).

“It would be damning with faint praise to say that this is one of Reading’s better restaurants, but it certainly is” – a “striking” and “carefully converted Lido” with spa, where you dine poolside and enjoy the “romantic” and “soothing” spectacle of “watching others swim whilst you eat”. “The dishes nod towards the Mediterranean and feature a wealth of flavours and textures”, as well as feeling “healthy and wholesome” (except, that is, the “naughty but nice” desserts). Some regulars here this year, though, said the food was “good, but not as good as on our last visit”.

Basque-influenced cuisine – much of it from the charcoal grill – is now the order of the day at this “beautifully situated” pub, deep in the back-of-beyond of West Berkshire (in fact quite close to the M4, though you’d never know). The days when it was famous for its game dishes are gone – today you will discover an assortment of tapas plus more substantial fare – from Catalan fish stew to ‘12 Hour Lamb Shoulder’. Fans say it’s "really lovely” and “very well executed”. On the downside, one or two old timers can’t get with it. (“I really want to like this pub, I have been coming for years and its situation and ambience is idyllic, quintessential English countryside. But the prices are expensive and the tapas-style small plates and mains to share just aren’t that inviting”).

2023 Review: Chef-patron Olivier Bouet, who had presented “excellent rustic French cuisine” at this Chilterns village gastropub for five years, recently moved on, and the new owners reopened in July 2022, announcing their plans for an ‘eclectic modern British menu with South African influence and popular grill favourites. Every item on the menu will be made on the premises’. It’s a big change of style, hence for the time being we’ve left it unrated.

“You feel like royalty” at this “amazing property” owned by the National Trust, which dates back to 1666, but was transformed into the Italianate mansion that you see today by Sir Charles Barry in the 1850s; Cliveden has welcomed a Who’s Who of 20th-century history, and was once owned by America’s richest man, William Waldorf Astor, as well as providing the backdrop to the notorious Profumo Affair. While the modern European cooking doesn’t always outshine that epic backstory, few places offer a more “amazing ‘Arvo’ tea”: “a truly wonderful retrospective experience of grand living in the 1920’s, with first class cakes and savouries and superlative views of the gardens”. One savory is ‘Winston Churchill Roast Beef & Yorkshire Pudding’, namechecking just one of the many famous former guests here.