I recently blogged about my experience of the set menu at Côte in Marlow. At the end of the day was I happy? Well I wasn’t unhappy. It was a pity there was limited choice for the starter, I had my heart set on the potted crab, and I also liked the sound of the charcuterie. However with the set menu choices it was restricted to the soup and the beetroot. I did enjoy the meal and it was nice to sit down, be served.
It wasn’t an amazing experience, but the food I did have I enjoyed. I thought I might try and give that Côte menu another go. This time though my experience would be at the Côte branch in Ealing. My last experience eating in that branch was very positive.
Overall I did enjoy my food at Côte, the service was excellent, and I had a lovely dining experience. It wasn’t perfect, but it was nice, and with the fixed price menu, I thought it was value for money.
I did write in that blog post about how I feel about the chain.
I kind of have a love hate relationship with the Côte chain of restaurants. I really like French style cooking and the Côte menu has an extensive choice of French inspired dishes. The service at the Ealing branch of Côte has always been excellent. Welcoming, warm and friendly. The food arrives in ample time, and I have never felt rushed. The waiting staff are attentive, but not intrusive. What’s not to like? However, though the food is good, it isn’t excellent, and so I always have to temper my expectations. I like the food, but I wouldn’t say I love the food. I am not entirely sure what they could do to make things better, but I am confident that they could.
Since I wrote that, I did visit Petit Pois in Brighton, which is an amazing little French restaurant where I had some excellent food including a delicious cassoulet, a wonderfully tasty bouillabaisse, and a exquisite skate wing.
So, I kind of know what a great French bistro in the UK can be, Côte is not quite there, but despite that I do enjoy the food and the cooking.
I booked a table through the app and headed off to the restaurant. I was given a friendly and warm welcome and was shown to my table.
On this visit to Côte in Ealing, it was back to the set menu, unlike Marlow, they did have all the starters. This meant I could have the potted crab. The simple basic presentation to me worked well. There was some fresh seeded bread. The potted crab was topped with lobster butter.
The crab was delicious. You really taste the crab in the pot. Sometimes when I have crab based dishes in restaurants, you struggle to taste the crab. When I had the Crab Maison at Côte back in 2023 I said of that dish:
I was hoping for an intense crab flavour, which I felt was missing, and what crab there was, was overpowered by the mayonnaise.
This time you really knew it was crab. I forgot that the butter was a lobster based butter and avoided it. So, not really able to remember what is did taste like. At Marlow they did bring some bread to the table, this time, no bread. Actually I could have done with some more bread, as there was quite a bit of crab in the potted crab.
Having had the steak and frites at Marlow, this time I went with something different and had the sea bream. This was grilled Sea Bream with a sun-dried tomato butter, olive salsa vierge, and sautéed tarragon new potatoes.
This was well presented and was absolutely delicious. There was a real combination of French Mediterranean flavours in the plate of food, from the tomatoes olives and the sun-dried tomato butter. The fish was perfectly cooked, full of flavour and the skin was nice and crispy. I really enjoyed that dish.
Now for the third course. I did think about going down a different road for this course, as I had done for the starter and the main, but I am a sucker for cheese and biscuits, so yes I ordered the cheese and biscuits.
I wasn’t given a choice and my plate arrived with just three cheeses, three different cheeses though. The quince jelly was there, but not crackers. However a portion of bread was provided.
I did feel that the plate looked a little sad and certainly needed something else there, the crackers perhaps would have enhanced the presentation. As it was I prefer bread with my cheese to crackers, though the bread I did get was a little stale.
Overall this experience at Côte Ealing with the set menu was so much better than that at Marlow. They had all the dishes, and the starter and main course were excellent. The cheese like Marlow was disappointing and I must remember in the future to avoid it. Service was warm and friendly.