West Berkshire Brewery

Founded in 1995, this microbrewery based in Yattendon in Berkshire offers “real ales” using traditional brewing techniques, available for home consumption and licensed trade. Run by Dave and Helen Maggs, this husband and wife team have seen the brewery go from strength to strength in recent years, increasing their output by over 250% since the company’s inception. The brewery has experienced success in their field since their early days, however, with the Maggs’ winning their first award within a year of operation. The brewery has won over 25 awards in all over their 17 year history.
 

West Berkshire Brewery has built up a good reputation based on their high quality beers, good customer service and niche market, independent values. The Maggs’ really know their stuff when it comes to beer – they are consummate brewing professionals with a micro approach to sales, marketing and industry. Everything from their bottles to the names of the beers, to the places the beers are sold is thought out with their brand’s specific market in mind. West Berkshire Brewery beers have thus a perfect market position, appealing to crusty real ale fans and younger drinkers alike. Indeed, there is a greener market discovering the flavours of traditional brews at present, and WBB’s clean, quirky labels with just a hint of traditionalism appeal well to this set. As such, you can find WBB beers all over the county (and beyond), from gig venues and student watering holes in Reading to gastro-pubs in the sticks. The beers all have marvellous names as well for that added kick of indie charm, including “Old Father Thames”, “Good Old Boy” and “Dr. Hexter’s Healer”. They also do special edition beers, including one for last year’s royal wedding, another planned for the diamond jubilee. They even have a limited edition beer of the month – April 2012’s is the fantastic “Pig and Tea”, a dark beer with hints of coffee and chocolate. 

West Berkshire Brewery make malty, full-bodied bitters, milds and ales, available in casks, bottles and polypins, all of which are available to mail-order online. They also have a brewery shop where you can purchase t-shirt, bar towels and glasses, amongst other things. The brewery also acquired The Rising Sun pub in Stockcross in 2005, which won the CAMRA Berkshire pub of the year award in 2007. The brewery also has strong environmental ethos, employing sustainable brewing techniques and business attitudes, sourcing their resources locally when possible, and supporting the local economy. Cheers!

http://www.wbbrew.com/next.html

Nordic Bakery

Nordic Bakery offers its punters a potent snippet of Scandinavian culture, right in the heart of Soho. Founded by Finnish chef Juli Wahlsten in 2007, the aim of the Nordic Bakery is to create a café environment “just like any café you would find across Scandinavia”. The focus is on serving traditional Scandinavian food, with a simple, homemade vibe. The result is very authentic, good quality cakes, sandwiches and biscuits at completely reasonable prices. 
 

The Nordic Bakery offers comfort food Scandinavian style, with cakes and pastries being a particular speciality. On any given day, you can find Swedish Tosca cake, poppy seed and ginger cakes, as well as fabulous Finnish cinnamon buns, which are utterly divine. There are also plenty of tasty savouries, including open rye sandwiches with ham and Jarlsberg, gravadlax or smoked salmon. Food is based around seasonal fare and low-fat options where possible. There is also plenty of tea, and excellent quality, strong coffee to wash it down with. 

Food is available to eat in or take away, but unless it is a particularly beautiful day it is wonderful to sit inside this peaceful, uncluttered, and uncomplicated café. The Nordic Bakery interiors are minimalist as you might expect, with cool, muted colours, dark woods, and functional IKEA-style furniture. 

There are a variety of rye breads baked daily to take home, which are light, tasty, and nothing like the heavy stodgy stuff you get in supermarkets. You can also purchase preserves and juices from the Tillmans of Sweden range, with Scandi flavours such as lingonberry, raspberry and Arctic cloudberry. You can even buy cases of hand-bottled natural blueberry juice.  

Nordic Bakery have a main branch in Soho, and a sister site in Marylebone. A third branch is due open in May 2012. The bakery has also published a cookbook in 2011, with plenty of sweet and savoury recipes.

http://www.nordicbakery.com/

The Jericho Tavern

The Jericho Tavern, hidden away from the tourists slightly in the north of the city, is not only one of the best pubs in Oxford, but it is also home to the city’s best music venue. Downstairs is the pub – a beautiful space full of traditional English touches. There are plenty of leathers, velvets and woods, with a palette of plums, burgundies and emeralds, furnished with subtle golden lighting and huge arched windows. There is a vague modern vibe to the place however, and the subtle licks of bohemia stave off any staid, old-fashioned pretence that could potentially accompany such decor.

The Jericho offers plenty of marvellous touches that every good pub should offer. They host inventive nights including quiz nights, book swapping events and roast dinners on Sundays, as well as the odd lot of sport on a big screen TV for traditionalist. They have a heated, covered beer garden that hosts BBQs in the summer, and a good selection of real ales, wines, spirits and continental ciders and lagers. They have plenty of tables and chairs – always an important element in a pub, and there is an eclectic indie jukebox which is not so loud that you cannot hear the person next to you.

On of the best things about this pub though is the food. The Jericho Tavern offer amazing pub grub, very much “New English” fair which is classic, inventive and tasty. As well as the Sunday roast, there is a snack bar and sandwich menu, a fix prix menu and a main menu, which includes food as varied as warm pork belly with balsamic beetroot and sweet potatoes, fig, goats cheese and pecan tart and potted mackerel with horseradish on toast. All meals are under £10 (except the 10oz steak, which will set you back fifteen whole pounds).

Upstairs though is The Jericho’s piece de resistance. Accessed via a collection of numerous staircases is a marvellous den clad in black, with a teeny stage and surprisingly good sound. There is loads of space to both stand and sit, and the upstairs venue even has its own bar. The Jericho has recently hosted the likes of Summer Camp, Braids and Cults, although in a previous life the venue hosted Radiohead’s first gig, and Supergrass purportedly signed their first record contact there too.

The pub became part of the Scream chain in the late 1990s, but returned to indie ownership, and reinstated the music venue in 2005. It even has cheap and easy parking, especially for Oxford.

http://www.thejerichooxford.co.uk/

The Grand Café

The Grand Café is allegedly the oldest coffee house in England. The establishment is said to have featured in Samuel Pepys’ diary, and records show the oxford site has featured a coffee house since the 1650s. This luxurious teahouse, bar and café has become an Oxford establishment, frequented by tourist and students alike. The café is even said to have been a regular favourite of Chelsea Clinton when she was studying at Oxford, with Bill reputed making the odd appearance.

 The Grand Café specialises in cream tea and high tea, both of which are full of traditional English tea staples such as scones, finger sandwiches, lashings of loose-leaf tea, ground coffee and the odd spot of champagne. They also serve lunch, offering a range of English and Italian inspired sandwiches, salads, seafood dishes and free-range meat pies. In the evening the café makes a final transformation into an opulent cocktail bar, with good quality cocktails, liqueurs, beers and fine wines.

 The food at The Grand Café is not extravagantly upmarket, but it does offer a nice snippet of luxury, and is certainly nice when you fancy a posh little treat. The prices might be a little over the odds, but the whole point of visiting The Grand Café is that it is an occasion. The café itself is beautifully laid out, with marbled pillars, filigree and gold leaf adorning every surface. There is a grandiose art deco feel about the place, which is ultimately what make it a stylish, lavish, and coolly aloof independent treasure, and a nice stop-off on a day trip to Oxford.

http://www.thegrandcafe.co.uk/

Mix Bar

 This gorgeous little bar is one of Reading’s best-kept secrets. Located just to the east of the Oracle Riverside, the beautiful Mix Bar is awash with ambient lighting, cool, classy décor, chandeliers, gold sofas, and orchids aplenty. The bar has a great set of DJs and the music isn’t so loud that you cannot talk to your friends. The ambience is relaxed (very relaxed for Reading) and the bar tenders are friendly and affable in a way that is perfectly genuine and not forced.

The key thing about the Mix Bar though is that it is quite literally the best place to get a cocktail in Reading, bar none. The drinks are little bit on the steep side, at around £6.50 they are about £1.50 - £2.00 more expensive than your average cocktail, but my god are they worth it. Each cocktail is individually made and takes up to five minutes to complete. They use fresh fruit and freshly squeezed juice alongside the finest and tastiest spirits you can get, using Grey Goose, Finlandia and Bombay Sapphire instead of Smirnoff, Bells and your usual generic spirits. 

 It is not just the quality of the ingredients in the Mix Bar’s cocktails that is laudable however; the way the construct their cocktails is truly inspired, with rich, complex medleys of tastes and aromas. As an example, two of my current favourites of theirs are “Around the Garden Fizz”, made up of Grey Goose pear vodka, St-Germain elderflower liqueur, fresh mint, peach bitters and champagne, and their classic dry Martini, with vodka or gin, dry vermouth and orange bitters and a couple of olives. There is such an effort and consideration put into every drink, and it is a tasty treat I try to give myself every time I go into Reading for a night out. 

 If you are local to reading and you have not been to this bar yet shame on you – do try to check it out. It can get quite full, so you might have to either arrive early or be patient. But believe me, the drinks are worth the wait.

http://www.mix-bar.com/