We decided that it was time for a proper, grown up review. You know, like the ones Fay Maschler used to write, or AA Gill or Grace Dent before they gave up the booze.

Time to go back to the nineties, or even eighties, when a business lunch was fun and nothing got done in afternoons beyond moving on to find somewhere for dinner and another drink.

Yes, time for a retro review and a bit of nostalgia because the subject of today's review is Côte, that stalwart of French brasseries (or is it bistros ?) - a surviving chain that has long ago seen off the likes of Pierre Victoire and Cafe Rouge.

The reason for nostalgia isn't so much the retro menu, but the decision in the week of our visit by Reading Borough Council to allow the redevelopment of swathes of Oracle Riverside into flats.

So the local Côte will be no longer.

This has been a stalwart, and I have regularly visited both the Reading and Wokingham branches over the years. It's just the place for a good, solid boozy lunch or a Sunday dinner with the extended family. Or a meal after an early evening movie - yes the Vue cinema complex is also going, to be replaced with a smaller number of smaller screens apparently.

Recently Côte emphasised their 'back to the future ' move to become more French so I was interested to see the latest menu.

Which is really not that French. However, the menus at your typical French cafe is no longer that French. They have been Macdonalised with a pasta on the side. Indeed, the food quality at those French cafes still surviving (Uber Eats conquers the world..) caused so much consternation that the French government considered introducing an 'appelation' standard for cafes

The lunch menu is OK value but really short on French mains (arguably steak frites is the only 'French' main course on the menu). 

We were here for a proper lunch so a bottle of Picpoul and some of the magnificent and huge fourgasse (a pretzel shaped bread) with onion and cheese toppings was perfect as we caught up. The charcutterie was a bit disappointing - some saussicon sec, which my wife loves and I loathe, with Parma ham (not so French) along with remoulade, confit cucumbers and a dash of rocket. Totally pathetic compared to what you can get at Carluccios or Vino Vitae, albeit for a bit more money. The meat also came with some bread and butter, I should add. I have never been served butter in a French restaurant without asking... But this is Reading.

Still, we chatted and grazed. and drank and grazed. This was the week after serious defeats in the Six Nations, which both of use tried to ignore, but there was always that undercurrent of Celtic defeatism and we debated the games endlessly anyway (G is a proud Scot despite his Saesnach accent.)

After an hour or so we decided that a main should be ordered. The special - Breton Fish Soup - was chosen by both of us, eschewing the burger and pasta dishes that have contaminated that 'back to the future'  menu.

This was a rich tomatoey/paprika broth (technically making it a Basque stew not a Breton stew in my view), with lots of mussels and some salmon plus leeks and potatoes. It was delicious, but not fully satisfying. 

A fishy soup is easy. This had a bit of depth, but I knew I could do much better at home. As a £18 special it was more than passable, but I spent most of the meal reflecting on what it lacked (depth, dill...)

An hour or so later - I did warn you that we were doing this properly, didn't I ? - we went for the puds. A chocolate praline tart with ice cream and a pistachio creme brulee that was, well, a chocolate ganache with ice cream and a mushy bit of pistachio loveliness. Nothing brilliant, nothing bad and probably a thousand calories between us that I and G never needed. But when you're in your sixties and seventeen stone already, the voice of your GP in you ear is a mere whisper compared to your tinnitus.

 

Côte is run, thank the heavens, by a UK company. You know, those people climbing lamposts with union jacks and selling out the UK to the US by endlessly using Google, Facebook, Amazon, X et al. Yes, you guessed it. We had a bottle of a very nice Cotes du Provence (yes, i know, we went all Saturday Kitchen with a pink wine..) - you will not go wrong with the wine list here - and conversation became a bit more intense.

The US has contaminated the world. Its businesses dominate us, but we do not realise, and even French cuisince has fallen foul to the dreadful burger, and in France your village bistro now has a deep fat frier instead of a chef.

And Côte is now a symptom of this. A good hybrid of the traditional French brasserie with a cheap British pub, heading the way of an American diner.

You can eat so well here, for a reasonable price, but this is not high cuisine and it is not what you can eat at my favourite French bistrôt (for the record, Saccerre on the Rue des Bretanges in the Marais, which was my local for one wonderful year).

The food is good, the service at the Reading branch is perfect, the location, until they tear it down, is quite nice - this is a huge space on two levels with massive windows on the drab concrete culloiur that is the River Kennet at this point. It sits opposite LSB, where you can have a slightly better experience for a slightly greater outlay.

So, job done. At around four o'clock we ran through the endless, pouring rain to Market House for a 'debrief' and agreed that we had had a perfect 80s style boozy lunch with bottles of Picpoul, Graves and Cotes du Provence.

The Reading branch is directly owned and not a franchise and the staff diod not know what the future held. I dearly hope that they will find a new slot in one of our many empty premises and just carry on, but really go back to the future with their menu and make it vraiment francais.