Côte Brasserie - Reading

The service and food were outstanding. We had the French onion soup, olives, ribeye with peppercorn sauce and garlic butter. The steaks were cooked perfectly medium. Great location as well! Parked in the garage nearby.

This is my second visit and yet again; impressed by the delicious food and drinks; as well as the warm and welcoming staffs.

Booked a dinner on a Friday night as we have not been to this place yet. The moment we came in the lady was very nice and accommodating. She gave us options where to seat as it is not too crowded last night. Had Calamari for starters. I always loved calamari and Côte’s calamari was perfectly cooked along with the dip, a star!! The steak too was great. According to my likeness of medium rare. The truffle potato puree goes really well with the steak. The man who serves us was really friendly and accommodating. He kept asking if there’s anything we need and if the food is good. I think I won’t go wrong booking this for my birthday on December. Looking forward to it!

Cote reading remains the nicest chain restaurant in the ding. Food is excellent and the staff are always friendly and polite (if you treat them like a human being big shocker 🙄😂) ambience is nice and music isn't loud at all so means good conversation. It is expensive but let's face it, you aren't going here for a walk in your going for fancy and your getting it

A lovely romantic atmosphere for couples. Somewhere to go if you don't like loud, noisy restaurants. The food choices are always good, but they have a couple of special winter options. As a French person, I have had lots of tartiflettes in my life, but the one they had at Côte was the best I've had in England. Could have just used a bit more cheese on the top. But overall, delicious and the portion size was spot on. Can't wait to come back again and have another delicious meal.

Food was delicious 🤤 Friendly staff can help you to choose from the menu. But the cheese plate for one looked a bit poor in terms of the amount of cheese that was served. Apart from that it’s a great place to spend an evening.

Really good food. Calamari was nice and crispy rather than rubbery or slimy and came with plenty of sauce. Burger and chips were faultless - caramelised onions always take it to another level for me. The meringue dessert was also just right. Would have liked a few more non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks options but not a deal-breaker by far. Came to £37 which included 2 drinks, starter, main and dessert.

We had such a brilliant time for my mums birthday. The food is exquisite, the staff are so friendly and welcoming. Special thanks to pav our waiter who was so accommodating and help with the menu (coeliac life!) but who also made this an extra special birthday for my mum and our family.

We went there to celebrate our anniversary, and received excellent service, amazing food with complementary bubbly. Very thankful to the staff 🙏

The music is low enough to allow a conversation. The service is amazing, the waiters are so patient and nice. The food is unique; I tried almost all the restaurants in Reading and Cote remains the best and different. I judge the quality of a restaurant food by comparing to my cooking. If the restaurant cooks better than me, then it is a good restaurant.

I had a fantastic dinning experience at Cote. Food was absolutely delicious. The flavour, the texture, the balance. In addition atmosphere and staff were awesome! We tried the whole chicken with fries and bernaise sauce.

The restaurant surprised me with its vibrant flavors and welcoming atmosphere. Every dish tasted fresh, and the service felt genuinely caring. I’ll happily return soon.

I had a great evening meal at the Cote in Reading. Sushel was a delight and a compliment to the Venue. Great suggestions and attentive service. Would highly recommend

I appreciate the friendly attentive staffs and the food are absolutely delicious and worth to try. Our slightly disappointments are the layout for 19 people were not enough space and staff started to add tables and chairs. The service was delayed to start with drinks. Apart from brilliant follow-up by texts or emails, it wasn't possible to talk to someone on the phone, when we called restaurant to amend our booking, but at the end one of the staff called back and that was a relief. Thanks for the hardwork to serve our group nicely. Everyone enjoyed their foods and drinks. I highly recommend their foods.

Met some friends here and had lunch. Staff were attentive and friendly. Food was delicious I had the mushroom baguette and onion soup with fries. Delicious wines by the glass. Reasonable prices. Right by the canal so nice in the summer.

No cash accepted. Clean, spacious French restaurant with a good ambience. We had excellent service on our visit. We hadn't booked and only had about 75minutes before we watched a show. It wasn't a problem. The food was really good apart from my scallop starter. Perfectly cooked scallops but on a bed of whole peas(not purée), bacon and apple. It was a convoluted mess to look at. I didn't finish it. Everyone enjoyed their meals.

+3

Very pleasant interior Had the French onion soup as a starter for £9. It was a good portion and was lovely and hot and delicious. Would def recommend this. Had the steak and frites. It was a good portion for me considering I had a starter. The peppercorn sauce was delish. The salad looked a little forlorn but was still nice. I didn’t know about this prior coming to this restaurant but they do free top ups on fries and sauces. Service was good.

Côte in Reading is located on The Riverside at The Oracle shopping Centre. Well presented this is quite a large incarnation of this established eatery franchise. Spacious downstairs and upstairs the venue offers a lot of covers. It can get busy but you shouldn’t struggle to get a table. Staff are prompt, friendly and courteous. The menu offers plenty of choices with some decent wines to be had from the wine list. The food is pretty decent and arrives quickly depending on how busy the restaurant is. A preferable choice to dine in Reading compared to some of the other mainstream eateries.

+6

Food was amazing. Had the rib eye steak which was perfectly cooked, and as asked, and a creme caramel desert. Staff was very friendly but the service was a bit slow, hence the four stars instead of five. Location wise, is in the center of Reading with a nice river view.

I was here a lot in the summer when popular for staycay & escape DIY noise. Taken for bday by family visiting from abroad. Did book briefly before with mature student discount. Also chose tables. 2 menus regular & Christmas. Reasonable price for mains & set menus, unlimited fries with mains with fries. Special Xmas menu.

We came here to celebrate a birthday and were very impressed with the food. It was quick to arrive and tasted delicious. Only thing that let it down was the service. It was extremely slow, the drinks took almost 15 minutes to come out and the bill wasn’t brought over for almost half an hour even though we were one of few in the restaurant. Other than that would recommend.

We came here because l had £50 voucher to spend. We don't eat meat so we ordered fish. It was okay but not wow. If l had to pay for this meal, l wouldn't come to this restaurant. It's same like in another places. But nice desserts and friendly staff.

We will have dinner here today 12 of December for the occasion of graduation of my daughter with masters degree with distinction, I hope we will have good time, will let you know after dinner. It was good, the staff is so nice and helpful, some portions are small, most of the 8 guests didn't satisfy their hunger 😅 next time we have to get two mains for each, I could hardly talk to others sitting next to me on the table, some items have exaggerated prices, I don't know about the others, but what I ordered came very different of what the menu says, it seems the kitchen people don't know about the description in the menu Overall experience was good we managed to enjoy our celebration

I always think of this place as an average run of the mill chain, and actually I was completely surprised and delighted with my meal. I started with the Parfait which was heavenly and for main I enjoyed the house beef burger with added streaky bacon, unbelievably tasty and well presented. It's a massive thumbs up from me.

One of Readings better places to eat. There are some great set menus and mid week offers. It's a very reasonable place to dine out if you want good service, great vibe and good food

The service was slow even though it wasn't crowded, but the food was delicious as always.

Overall, lovely interior, friendly staff. Good cocktails, decent food. Went for Valentines and they clearly just couldnt cope with the numbers. Everything took so long to arrive, the free flow frites top up took 40 minutes, for one portion. Drinks took 25/30 minutes to arrive, same with the dessert. Staff clearly working hard just too many covers to be able to effectively serve well.

Atmosphere and service was as good as it has always been. Unfortunately the new menu and products were disappointing. Fries have been replaced with cheap tasting thick cut chips. They’ve moved to unlimited fries so I assume this has been facilitated by a cheaper product. Various items have been removed from the menu such as the duck and replaced with pasta dishes. A shame and would assume it has been done to facilitate meals with a better mark up. Pictured is the half roast chicken and frites which cost £22. Extremely disappointing and honestly felt like a meal you would get at a wetherspoons or equivalent for a fraction of the cost. Whilst the new menu is advertised as going back to their roots it feels much more like a move to increase profits. Unlikely to visit again, which is a shame as it was a firm favourite. The staff were extremely understanding and went above what you would expect following highlighting of the issues.

It’s Ok and a nice place to spend time in but not fantastic. Unlimited fries is a nice touch but the fish dishes could be more enticing.

Cote is a great place for a defined and mature dinner or any meal. It's atmospher is great with amazing service from the staff. They pay attention to your request and double check if anything can be done to make your experience better. However, I think the food can be stepped up a bit on the flavour side. I recently went for dinner and ordered the half chicken with a side of chips and spinach. While the chips were fine the chicken had no seasoning at all lacking in flavour or direction. The same could be said for the spinach as the only thing which could be tasted was garlic. A strong smell of garlic is preferred in all dishes which is a shall with salt and pepper not used at all. I would say that this should be changed as I could have made a better dinner at home.

The staff here are really nice and you always know what you’re going get when you visit a Cote Brasserie. Food is cooked well and is well presented. I was a little disappointed on my last visit because my daughter couldn’t eat much from the menu due to allergies. I was very pleased to see an allergen menu at out table as we’d said that a member of our party had food allergies when we booked. However the food we ordered made her feel ill and she couldn’t finish any of her dishes. I’m well aware that cross contamination can happen in any kitchen, but we have eaten out in a lot of places that have managed to get it right, so was a little disappointed nevertheless.

+3

Food is ok, service just terrible. Been waiting for over an hour.. the main/entree finally arrives. Servers seem to extremely non-responsive (French vibes?). Also, does steak get served with coriander? For a slightly higher price point the London Street Brasserie is a significantly nicer experience and way better food

I ordered coffee, dessert, and water. The coffee was delicious. As for the desserts, one was not good, one was good, and one was just average. There was a donut-shaped dessert that looked like a bagel — it wasn’t really nice, it was soggy and filled with strawberry yogurt. Overall, an okay experience.

+6

I booked a meal for 6 people through a wowcher deal yesterday. We had eaten there several times before and had always been satisfied. Yesterday, however, we were presented with a limited menu for the deal. The experience was not good, portion sizes were very small, quality poor and the service was very slow. Overall it was not a good experience and was certainly not worth the money we paid. When we eat out we are careful that we go to places that offer us a good experience. Eating out is a special event , this was not special.

Went to the Reading branch for lunch today with my son and a friend, and unfortunately left really disappointed with the service. We ordered mains only and ended up waiting around 50 minutes for them to arrive. When we asked the manager about the delay, there was no apology or acknowledgement at all. There were also no complimentary gestures offered to make up for the long wait, which would have gone a long way. Getting the bill took far too long as well — staff weren’t paying attention, and even after making eye contact and gesturing for assistance, we were still ignored. Overall, a very underwhelming experience and not what I expected from Cote. In the past we have always had a positive experience and was not impressed with the management at this branch.

We went last thursday evening and there was barely anyone in. We sat down and heard the house music being played. We ordered steak and burgers and it took a while to come, we also asked for condiments and tap water which took a while to come. When my steak came it was severely undercooked and the burger was burnt. When I asked for the steak to be more well done, they returned with the same steak and so it was just dry and inedible. At the same time there was a couple seated far from us and food reviewer that was experiencing similar issues and the waiter even talked back to the couple, saying she was wrong and she got quite upset (understandably). There was no french feel, the food was subpar and service was minimal and uncaring. Good entertainment but a shame.

The breakfast was not nice at all. My mum ordered the vegan breakfast and was given regular butter - this was not an issue for my mum as she is vegetarian but still it could have been an issue for others. The drinks were nice but the food was tasteless and cold. The staff were lovely and is the only reason this is a two star review rather than a one.

Went to the Reading branch on Valentine’s Day. Got there at 4:30pm when it weren’t too busy. Ordered the Côte de beouf which took well over an hour to come. Fries and sauce didn’t come with it which took a further 15 minutes. Fries weren’t properly cooked, looked awful. Asked for a glass of wine which took 20 minutes and asking 3 times where it was for it to come. Asked for more fries and to be cooked properly which never came. Bill came to £122, when the majority of it never came. Was too tired of messing around in there and just wanted to go. Ended up getting some fast food straight after due to still being hungry. Incredibly poor experience. I understand it was Valentine’s Day and they may blame that but this was a joke of an experience.

We were very disappointed with our visit to Cote in Reading yesterday. Myself and my partner booked in advance and on arrival chose a table that had not been laid. The table was wiped then the waitress went off and we were left with no cutlery. Had to prompt the waitress who was leaning against the counter to bring us cutlery. We then ordered drinks which came and we said we were ready to order. Off went the waitress and didn’t return to take our food order. Once again we had to prompt her to take our order. We ordered olives to start. Meanwhile 3 people sat down at the table to our left. Within 5 minutes they were given olives & bread. We called the waiter over and asked where our olives were. He checked then apologised and said the table beside us had been given ours and he would bring ours out. The people who got ours said the waiter had said they were ‘on the house’. Very strange. When our olives arrived the waiter didn’t offer them on the house. I asked if they were and he answered ’they are now’. The food was good, we had the Salmon Bearnaise and steak followed by crème brûlée and chocolate fondant. At the end the waiter asked how the meal was. We stated that although the food had been good we were disappointed with the very slow service and that our starter had been given away. The unbelievable response was: ‘oh well, mistakes happen’. We were stunned at this reply. All in all our visit was blighted by the inattentive staff, slow service and defensive and uncaring response when we complained. We will not be returning.

I had lunch today at Côte Brasserie Reading and the service was extremely unprofessional. The ordering process was poorly handled, and both the waiting staff and the manager showed a very bad attitude. When we raised our concerns, the manager dismissed us by saying that “everyone has a different point of view” and even told us to complain, saying it was “no problem”. This response was shocking and unacceptable. There was no attempt to resolve the issue or show any professionalism. Overall, the service attitude was extremely poor and left a very negative impression

We had to wait 30 minutes for a starter and forgot drinks completely, then they forgot one starter , why advertise sea food linguine and then get plain pasta it’s the most important part and you think people won’t notice the difference also we counted 18 mussle shells and 6 actual muscle meat wow !! Complete rip off especially with a massive service charge plus they turned the lights down so low we could not read menus no warning atall and rude staff no stats is to much for cote

Really poor meal tonite. The finesse is gone, horrible chips dumped on the plate, over cooked burger and no cutlery laid out now. Feels like a cheap cafe / greasy spoon. Have been to the same restaurant for 8 years, I was a loyal customer but will now be dining elsewhere. Staff and service still amazing.