Edible Reading
@ediblereading.bsky.social
Reading's only restaurant blog, as featured in the Sunday Times and the Mail On Sunday. New reviews on Fridays at 12pm.
NEW REVIEW! This week: is Caversham the only part of Reading immune from enshittification, and does Greek restaurant Spitiko play a part in that? ediblereading.com/2026/07/31/r...
Restaurant review: Spitiko
Having written about and celebrated Reading and its independent scene for nearly 13 years, one thing that has always irritated me is people who live to run the place down. You see them popping up o…
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NEW REVIEW! This week, what better to do on one of the hottest days of the year than check out a restaurant with an absolutely massive charcoal grill? Surely nothing can go wrong… ediblereading.com/2026/07/24/r...
Restaurant review: Antep Kitchen, Oxford
Taking a Friday off and meeting my old friend Dave for lunch in Oxford felt like such a good idea when we made our plans. There’s something magical about a long lunch – and especially o…
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In case you missed it on Friday, the new blog post is a brand new, almost-exhaustive guide to the best food and drink in Bruges, a stunning city that has a lot going on beneath its picture-perfect surface. Hope you enjoy! ediblereading.com/2026/07/17/c...
Evan’s piece is a fantastic intro to Bruges with all the useful cultural and sightseeing info mine is missing - well worth a read!
Evan Rail@evanrail.bsky.social · 3w agoHere's a gift link to my latest NYT travel piece, 36 Hours in Bruges. Brugge is a charming town with a lot going on, including an excellent new art space, Brusk (esp. the Bigger Picture exhibit). Cool bars, cafes & restaurants. Plus Greet Verbeke’s curios & antiques. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
This is a great guide to food & drink in Bruges — I wish I’d seen it before I wrote up 36 Hours in Bruges for the NYT, out now. (Service was slow & prices high at a certain steakhouse, so I didn’t include it; I loved Avi’38, Shibuya & Dees in this guide. Cult & Mosh, not listed here, also rock.)
Edible Reading@ediblereading.bsky.social · 3w agoNEW POST! This week my brand new, completely revised and overhauled guide to brilliant Bruges. Here’s the link if you want to read about excellent food, beer, wine and coffee: ediblereading.com/2026/07/17/c...
Having visited every one of these establishments, I can vouch for this being a really bloody good guide! If you’re considering a trip to Bruges, here you go!
Edible Reading@ediblereading.bsky.social · 3w agoNEW POST! This week my brand new, completely revised and overhauled guide to brilliant Bruges. Here’s the link if you want to read about excellent food, beer, wine and coffee: ediblereading.com/2026/07/17/c...
NEW POST! This week my brand new, completely revised and overhauled guide to brilliant Bruges. Here’s the link if you want to read about excellent food, beer, wine and coffee: ediblereading.com/2026/07/17/c...
City guide: Bruges (2026)
This is my third city guide to Bruges: I put the first one out back in 2022, and then I wrote another one two years later which I’ve been updating piecemeal ever since. Both times it shared t…
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No new post up on the blog yesterday, as I’m working on a labour of love: my expanded, brand new, verging on definitive guide to eating and drinking in Bruges. Comes out next Friday, and hopefully worth the wait.
Coming up next on the blog, as close to a definitive city guide to Bruges food and drink as you're likely to find in 2026. Plenty of work, but hopefully rewards for plenty of travellers, given that the current guide has been seen by over 35,000 people worldwide.
NEW REVIEW! This week, what Reading and Oxford have in common - a dearth of good independent restaurants in the centre. ediblereading.com/2026/07/03/r...
Restaurant review: No. 1 Ship Street, Oxford
Oxford, probably my favourite city in which to review restaurants, ostensibly has little in common with Reading. One has pretty old buildings and winding lanes, a shopping mall that doesn’t b…
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NEW REVIEW! This week a trip to Queens Park, and a reluctant realisation that I might have been doing restaurants wrong for years. Hope you enjoy it. ediblereading.com/2026/06/26/r...
Restaurant review: Carmel, Queen’s Park
At Carmel in Queen’s Park, a restaurant usually described as some combination of Eastern Mediterranean and North African, a snack of anchovies comes with tahini and crostini. Crispy squid is served…
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For those of you who are interested, the blog is now (back) on Facebook under a new page: www.facebook.com/EdibleReadin...
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NEW REVIEW! This week, I finally make it to one of last year's big Reading openings, Pho 86. Is there a fine line between subtle and bland, and which side of it does this fall on? #rdguk ediblereading.com/2026/06/19/r...
Restaurant review: Pho 86
The 21st of July last year might have seemed like a perfectly normal Monday to you, but in food and drink terms it was an eventful day for Reading. Lincoln Coffee finally opened its big new site on…
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NEW REVIEW! When is a main course not a main course, what’s the middle-class equivalent to IKEA and when everybody says somewhere is amazing, does that mean it definitely is? Plenty of questions to answer this week: ediblereading.com/2026/06/12/r...
Restaurant review: Juliet, Stroud
Stroud is lovely. Have you been? It’s so easy if you live in Reading: there’s a direct train that sets off once an hour, takes an hour and drops you close to the heart of things, less t…
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NEW REVIEW! This week, a return to Gooi Nara, and the good-natured bedlam of Katesgrove’s best restaurant: ediblereading.com/2026/06/05/r... #rdguk
Restaurant review: Gooi Nara
There’s no such thing as Spotify Wrapped or Apple Music Replay for restaurants, as far as I know. But if there was, the restaurant whose food I ate most last year is almost certainly Gooi Nara, the…
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NEW POST! This week, my guide to Glasgow’s best food and drink - packed with great dishes, marvellous dining rooms, cracking beer, terrific coffee and one of my favourite pubs of all time. ediblereading.com/2026/05/29/c...
City guide: Glasgow
I first visited Glasgow over a decade ago, twice in quick succession, and came away thinking that it was absolutely one of my favourite cities I had ever been to. I loved the grand scale of its str…
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NEW REVIEW! This week, breakfast burgers at Baby Yolk, the unsung member of the Yolk family. Was it any good, and can you really beat a Sausage & Egg McMuffin? #rdguk ediblereading.com/2026/05/22/c...
Café review: Baby Yolk
Alexandra Langlais, the owner of Insta-friendly Erleigh Road institution Café Yolk has had a busy twelve months. In January she opened Donnington Deli opposite Yolk’s original branch in a spo…
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NEW REVIEW! This week I manage to visit two places I last reviewed in 2014, only to find that neither is as bad as I remember. Does that mean that I was… no, it can’t be… wrong? #rdguk ediblereading.com/2026/05/15/r...
Restaurant review: Malmaison
This week’s review came about because several weeks ago I ate at Bill’s – and yes, if you don’t mind, I’d like to explain that statement. It wasn’t my choice, I …
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NEW REVIEW! This week, Nando’s. Yes, I went there. ediblereading.com/2026/05/08/r...
Restaurant review: Nando’s, Wokingham
Here are just some of the many reasons why I should not be reviewing the Wokingham branch of Nando’s this week. 1. It’s Nando’s. Everybody knows what eating at Nando’s is li…
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NEW REVIEW! This week we cover food trends, food in pubs and rotisserie chicken, with guest appearances from Jason Lee and Reading University’s biggest transphobe. Plenty to pick the bones out of - hope you enjoy it! ediblereading.com/2026/05/01/p...
NEW REVIEW! This week you get a bit of grief, an absolutely idyllic pub, a model village and… what’s Snoop Dogg doing in there? It’s a fair question. ediblereading.com/2026/04/24/p...
Pub review: The Jolly Cricketers, Seer Green
There are many restaurants I would love to visit but know, realistically, that I never will. You only have so many hours in the day, weeks of annual leave and pounds in your current account. I may …
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“I got that feeling I get in restaurants… the intangible inkling that it would all be okay.” NEW REVIEW! This week I visit M’s Smokehouse on the Basingstoke Road, Reading’s first halal smokehouse, and find a lot to like #rdguk ediblereading.com/2026/04/17/r...
Restaurant review: M’s Smokehouse
I’ve talked about this before, but it helps when you’re writing a restaurant review to have some kind of hook, some reason why you decided, this week of all weeks, to check that particular venue ou…
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NEW REVIEW! This week, I travel to Oxford in search of good fish and seafood. Do I find it? Can you get away with drinking red wine with fish? And what has an ex-racing greyhound got to do with anything? All is explained, well mostly: ediblereading.com/2026/04/10/r... #oxford
Restaurant review: Cuttlefish, Oxford
“This should be lovely” said my dear friend Jerry as we took a table in the window at Cuttlefish, a couple of minutes’ walk away from the far side of Oxford’s Magdalen Bridg…
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This week's restaurant review features carbs and condolences, in roughly equal measure. #rdguk ediblereading.com/2026/04/03/r...
Restaurant review: Just Momo
For all the people in Reading and beyond on Ozempic or Mounjaro, despite all the weeks in the last few years when I’ve joined my ever-optimistic wife on the Fast 800 diet, there remain some t…
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NEW REVIEW! This week, off to Bath, the city our national restaurant reviewers go to when they fancy a genteel jolly, for - yes, you’ve guessed it - a genteel jolly. How shit has your 2026 been so far, by the way? ediblereading.com/2026/03/20/r...
Restaurant review: Chez Dominique, Bath
This week’s review comes from Bath, and from a restaurant I visited with my old friend Dave, and those of you with good memories might recall that I was last in Bath on duty roughly a year ag…
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NEW REVIEW! I got a tip-off that hiding in the menu at new smash burger spot Smoke & Pepper was a dish so fantastic that one visit simply wasn’t enough. Naturally I had to check it out: so, was it true? #rdguk ediblereading.com/2026/03/13/r...
Restaurant review: Smoke & Pepper
Could you eat exactly the same thing day in, day out, for weeks on end? Fifteen years ago I worked in an office, back in the good old days when people actually liked going into the office every day…
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NEW REVIEW! Today, an excellent dinner in perhaps a surprising place, and some fantastic food at sweetshop prices. Hope you like it - link in bio if you’re interested. #rdguk ediblereading.com/2026/03/06/r...
Restaurant review: Namak Mirch
Graeme and I are a fine pair when I meet him on Cemetery Junction for our trip to Namak Mirch. He had an operation on his foot in January and is standing there, crutch in hand, wearing trainers for…
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NEW REVIEW! This week, a lunch for the ages that reminds me what eating out and hospitality is all about, and how magical it can be when it’s done well. I hope you enjoy this one. ediblereading.com/2026/02/27/r...
Restaurant review: Pompette, Oxford
This review begins, as a couple of mine have before, outside the Missing Bean on Turl Street in Oxford, a little before noon. I have grabbed a couple of seats outside on the cramped little benches,…
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