Tapas At The Thames Lido

My measure of special places to eat has to meet 'the parents at graduation' test – that is, if they were paying, where would you book lunch or dinner for your family after your graduation? I have long regarded the Lido as the best restaurant in Reading, but to be fair, there isn’t a huge amount of competition.

There's London Street Brasserie and Valpy's and then I struggle - The Reading Room (previously Cerise) I have yet to try, and the dining room at Malmaison and the upmarket steak at The Corn Stores are worth a shout out. We've lost Bel and the Dragon, which is now just another Fuller's pub (and a Fuller's pub is not where you want your parents to pay a premium after three years' hard spending on your education).

Carter & Miller may also hit the mark (although with their current pay dispute rumbling on they hardly qualify as anything more than a greedy corporate these days) and there are a couple of good choices for more explorative parents such as Clays, but that is in Caversham, with your gown on you may get blown into the Thames on your way over there and all those students loans are going to be down the river...

For its size, Reading really, really lacks special occasion restaurants. With sky high rents and rates, the chains dominate. And you really can’t take your folks to Nandos, can you ?

 

But, hopefully, as more and more city centre properties fall victim to our propensity to buy from Amazon, things may shift, although this week’s dreadful news about the closure of The Grumpy Goat does not bode well.

The Lido, built in 1902, used to be the town’s Ladies' swimming pool, hence there are few windows to the outside (the men got to jump in the Thames as far as I understand). It was taken over by the council, neglected and shut down in 1974 until the entrepreneurs behind the Bristol Lido lovingly restored it into a wonderful, albeit rather pricy pool, spa and restaurant, which is a great social asset set between Caversham Lock and the open expanse of Kings’ Meadow.

Inside it is a lovely open space and on an early autumn evening the swim lanes beyond the glass panes were full.

You can sit yourself on the relatively new high tables by the bar (a bit of a squeeze) for a drink and tapas only, or the tables down the river side of the pool, where are two menus - the Moorish a la carte or the tapas menu (you select one or the other).

I have eaten a couple of the best meals I have ever had from the a la carte, and I do not say that lightly. But on this night we decided to go for some tapas and a bottle of Albarino. It wasn't my graduation, but it was our twenty second wedding anniversary.

Now I have an affinity with tapas stretching back to the venerable Bar Gansa in Camden Town's Inverness St where I spent much of my early twenties and Maison Don Felipe, the institution off The Cut which is still a must go to after an evening at the Old Vic, the National or anywhere near Waterloo.

I have also spent a lot of time in Barcelona and, more importantly in San Sebastian, which many consider to be the home of tapas (and now we can now start a Catalan/Basque/Spanish argument over the origins of this fine tradition of small plates with lots of booze.)

Tapas is said to have a humble background - a circle of bread with a topping to keep the flies off your drink (tapa means ‘lid’). An alternative legend claims that tapas began when Spanish King Alfonso X, "El Sabio" or "The Wise," was recovering from an illness and could only consume small portions of food with some wine. Once he recovered, he decreed that taverns shouldn't serve wine without a small bite of food to avoid excessive drunkenness.

More likely is that serving tapas is similar to the British practice of salted peanuts and pork crackling in pubs and bars to keep you thirsty, drinking, and buying.

The idea of small plates to share is replicated in other cuisines such as Cantonese dim sum, so it is an idea that travels well and has been adopted in other food traditions. A restaurant in my home town of Caernarfon does a lovely Welsh 'tapas'. Small plates have become quite a big thing.

So, what of the dishes at Reading’s only tapas joint ? Well, this is where things get a tad disappointing.

The flatbread was nice, the hummus had far too much cumin and was actually unpleasant. The squid needed more time on the plancha and deserved some caramelisation. Two of the three prawns in garlic had not been properly prepped (poo glands and all), which really is unforgivable. The falafel were OK with a lovely parsley sauce that elevated them.



But the Manchego was to die for with lovely quince jelly.

There were three or four different sausages on the menu but no Iberico or serrano ham, which was disappointing, and there was a lack of a couple of good fresh veggie or salad options which I feel a tapas meal requires. However, the menu does change regularly and I see that there is a salad option currently available.

Of course, there are standards such as tortilla and patas bravas.

The Albarino hit the mark and there is a good wine list to be exploited, although my previous favourite Spanish cider seems to have disappeared.

Above all, this is a special and relaxing place to spend time and while away an evening – there is even dedicated parking outside if you’re not stumbling home after a glass of white to many, but I do hope that this was something of an off evening. Certainly for the next special occasion it will be the a la carte menu for us. Roll on twenty three years...

The Tapas Menu