Côte Ealing — Restaurant in London

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. However as a chain, I suspect they are constrained by the system cooking processes they use to ensure consistency across the different restaurants across the country. So the dish you order in Ealing is identical to the same dish if it was ordered in Bristol. I always think if they had a local chef, they could improve and enhance the food. Having said that, finding myself in Ealing on a somewhat warm evening, the cool air-conditioned branch of Côte was quite appealing. The fixed price menu looking tempting as well.

I was given a lovely warm welcome and I was allowed to choose where to sit, which was nice, as I was able to choose a slightly bigger table even though I was eating alone. I may have eaten outside, but it was still rather warm outside, and to be honest the pavement is rather busy and there is a constant stream of traffic running by.

Looking over the menu, I was tempted by quite a few things, but in the end, for my starter I chose the Salade au Bacon, bacon lardons tossed in a creamy anchovy dressing with endive and gem lettuce salad, cherry tomatoes, panisse chickpea croutons and crispy capers, topped with a poached egg.

The combination of tastes and textures worked. The runny yolk of the poached egg added to the richness of the salad. I was intrigued by the panisse chickpea croutons, they were crunchy, different, I think normal croutons would have worked just as well. This was a lovely rustic looking salad, and despite my earlier thoughts on dishes, I did think this looked great. It was also delicious. This is the kind of dish that I hope they serve at Côte and this time they delivered. I thought it was fantastic.

For my main course I went with the Steak Frites, and upgraded to the sirloin steak, which was described as topped with garlic butter and served with herbs and frites.

After a fantastic starter, this was a little disappointing. I think they forgot the garlic butter, and not having the menu to hand, I didn’t think to check with the waiting staff. The plate was a simple affair, I don’t know it looked rather plain. I am not sure what they could do though to make it better. I had asked for the steak to be cooked medium-rare, and it was. It was tender, but lacked seasoning. I generally avoid adding extra salt to my food, but this time the steak needed it. The frites were good, nice and crispy. I don’t think the herbs added anything. I would have maybe added a small rocket salad, or even some green beans instead. I think that would have improved both the look of the dish, and the overall eating experience.

Generally, I only order a starter and a main course, and avoid having a pudding. However, this time the fixed price menu had a cheese plate on offer, a selection of three French cheeses with a fig chutney & sourdough baguette. You could choose from the following cheeses, Comté, Pont l’Évêque, Roquefort, Délice de Bourgogne, Chèvre Buchette.

Now I am a sucker for a cheese course, so of course I said yes. I chose the Comté, Pont l’Évêque, and the Délice de Bourgogne.

I liked the fact that the cheese plate came with bread, however this was toasted sourdough baguette, which though nice, wasn’t quite what I wanted with my cheese.

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...

I ordered the breakfast deal today at cote and I have to say that without that deal it would have been a complete rip off. The coffee we ordered took a good ten minutes to arrive and was just a normal coffee and both my hot coffee my friends iced coffee were lukewarm. The ordering of our food felt slightly clunky and it took a long time to actually order three breakfast. I admit that two of the breakfasts had modifications one being that it was gluten free and the other to have one thing removed from the breakfast. Whilst we waited for our food we could clearly hear another costumers drink asked to be warmed up so it seemed to be a theme. That the drinks were cold.

One positive of the experience is that a serve came to clarify on the gluten free option and took note of the allergies present. However about five minutes later another server came and asked the same thing.

After around thirty minutes waiting for the food to arrive we had to request that one of the breakfast yogurt and berries be brought out soon as my friend had to leave luckily this was quick to come out but the portion size was a bit dubious. After another ten minutes the rest of the food arrived.

One friend ordered the eggs royal and said while it was tasty it was not warm and the eggs were under cooked

My own meal the cote cooked breakfast. Came with the part I had asked for it to be without which was mushrooms oddly which was the largest portion on the plate apart form the toast. The toast was cold and as the butter was also from the fridge it couldn’t be spread at all on to the toast. In my pot of beans there were four actual beans and the rest of the tiny pot was just sauce, which was tasty but again cold. The bacon I revived with minuscule and very over cooked but again lukewarm. I received two eggs similar to the size of quail eggs which were undercooked and very watery and tasteless. The only part of my meal that was fitting for the breakfast was the Cumberland sausage. The tomatoes were ok but I was expecting them to be sweeter and more rich in flavour as this is the reason cherry tomatoes are usually chosen to be roasted and they tend to be more flavour full.

A positive part was the juices which were tasty I do have to add about them that in the breakfast deal it was worth it but to get it separate it would have been five pounds which is a lot for a juice that although was nice did not blow us away.

Overall the whole experience was ok but I was dissatisfied with it due to the small portions and long wait for food that wasn’t hot.

The setting is beautiful but to have such a nice place be so disappointing was sad as we specifically chose the place to have a...

We had a Sunday booking for 11:45am mistakenly believing that breakfast finished at 1pm (as it used to). Our children (6 and 8) had been part of the Remembrance Sunday parade as cubs and beavers. They were tired and cold having been on their feet since 9:30am. We chose Cote as it was close to the finish of the parade. When we arrived people were still being served their breakfasts. We asked for the breakfast menu only to be told that it had finished at 11:30am. I asked the manageress whether she could ask the kitchen to do one meal of French toast from the breakfast menu as my eldest child is neurodivergent and was intent on having French toast (as we had told him he was having breakfast there). Instead of being empathetic to our situation she held up her phone and pointed out that the website clearly states that breakfast finished at 11:30am. I noted her point, but asked if she could ask the kitchen to do one French toast and then the other five of us would eat from the lunch menu. I explained that we would have to leave otherwise as our neurodivergent child would have a meltdown. Her response was to shrug her shoulders and tell me that they were “…too busy…” to accommodate this request (even though there were only seven covers seated). She then turned her back on me and continued with what she was doing. We did leave (as my child was starting to meltdown and I didn’t think that was fair on other customers). We walked down to Beehive and had a fantastic brunch. I’d like to contrast this to our experience later in the day at Ealing Picture House. We accidentally bought tickets for the front row (it looked to be the back row on their online booking system) for a sell out movie. When we got there and realised our mistake, we knew our son wouldn’t cope that close up to the screen. I discreetly asked the manageress whether there was anything she could do. She was incredibly understanding and went out of her way to move our seats around. The four of us weren’t sitting together but that was fine. It meant we all got to stay and watch the movie. The alternative would have meant us having to leave as we did with Cote. Perhaps the team at Cote, in particular the manageress on shift yesterday would benefit from diversity training to help them understand that neurodivergence is a real challenge for anyone living with it and/or raising a child with it. Empathy and understanding...