The Botanist

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I am thinking of giving up on the inReading food blog. The food in our town is so dire that it beggars belief. Four out of five reviews are negative and I need counselling 

Instead I cook at home where I can achieve far better things. That's sad. I am a media guy not a cook, so cooks should do so much better even if they are controlled by venture capitalists. Which brings us to the latest victim of my reviews.

This time it was a well-known national chain that has resulted in my holding my head in my hands in utter despair. She had been travelling a lot and I had barely seen her for a month, so she offered a lunch out on a warm Saturday as we returned from errands in town.

She offered LSB and I foolishly said that I would like to try somewhere 'new'.

The Botanist isn't new, and I had once been here for drinks. Considering that it's a short walk from home I was hoping that I could set aside prejudices and find a new watering hole and dining place that doesn't focus on biryani or Singapore noodles (as fine as those foodstuffs are).

But knowing that this twenty or so branch chain is owned by New World Trading Company, which in turn is majority owned by a VC called Graphite Capital should have been a warning. Those boys and girls are only in the game for your pound of flesh.

On a hot sultry Saturday in June as soon as we walked in this immediately struck me as really not the place to be - it's a dark and hollow old Barclays bank. We asked to sit in the lighter front area, but the sunlight was oppressive through the narrow windows with no air conditioning.

They sort of position themselves between being a restaurant and a bar and really should focus on the latter, with a nice collection of spritzers for summer and a decent drinks list.

The food is the usual greatest hits of halloumi sticks, fish and chips and burgers with 'hanging kebabs' as the signature quirk.

We had a limoncello spritz and a lager as we dallied over the short, albeit expansive menu.

My wife decided on the salmon and I went for the spicy chicken and chorizo kebab.

We could not resist the expensive bottle of Whispering Angel rosé on such a spring day. It is a drink with a tradition for us that involves staff hiding bottles on a cruise ship for us and a famous theft from the Bel of a magnum that I will not go into further here.

The service was attentive and kind but the delivery was slow. And it seemed that all of that time had been used to send the salmon and chicken to a crematorium.

OK to be fair, it wasn't burned. There was a good crust on the salmon skin, however, this unfortunately extended some way through the flesh.

The chicken came with those outside peelings of onion that are tough and inedible and should be thrown away. The chicken was badly over-cooked and horribly dry. The chillies added a punch and there was some kind of horrid oil on the side. WTAF? The dish cried out for something creamy or tomatoey or wet to dampen the utter desert-dry dreariness of the mulled meat.

The side of skin-on skinny chips were quite nice but a bit soggy and undercooked in this instance. Keeping that deep fat fryer hot enough is a perennial kitchen problem.

And to think the waitress had been instructed to upsell a garlic flatbread by the VCs on top if all this driness...

This isn't dining, it's eating by spreadsheet.

My wife does not let these things slide. Being a senior HR in a global corp she feels obliged to give feedback. Indeed, it's quite a sideshow - she has a wonderful way of delivering criticism whilst appearing fair. She passed on the criticism kindly to the poor manageress who seemed to be dealing with other complaints from other tables (of what kind I am unsure).

I would have told her that their food was crap. Really, really bad for these prices at £20 -30 per dish.

Every high street chain has to have what marketers call a 'formula' and The Botanist's seems to ensure that you are drunk enough not to notice how bad the food is.

If I could be bothered I would ask an AI to figure out how many of Reading's central eateries are run by VCs or investment funds, but I already know the answer. Too many. Wagamamas, Carluccio's, Wingstop, Honest Burger, Gordon Ramsay Street Burger are all in the hands of VCs. Some VCs own multiple branches, like TowerBrook  - Zizzi and Wagamama, Epiris with Las Iguanas and Bella Italia. In straitened times we are eating formulas, not in the good French meaning of the word, but in the cold financial sense. 

All businesses are a risk and they need risk equity, especially these days. And some get the formula right - I have given great reviews to some of the restaurant chains I list above. These guys work on the basis of knowing better than the businesses they back. I have spent a career, albeit in another industry, dealing with them and I know that it's a game of sometimes getting the formula right and sometimes getting it wrong. For me The Botanist formula would do a lot better to focus on drinks

The Botanist is a dire space with dire food, nice staff and decent drinks but I cannot see myself ever visiting any of its locations again.