L'Ortolan

Review: L'Ortolan Restaurant, Reading | Muddy Stilettos A fancy, special occasion in Reading? You betcha! L'Ortolan is a gastronomical belter serving exceptional food with first class service.

From the Royal Farms in Windsor Park, Berkshire

Our chefs are busy working away behind the scenes to bring you a brand new pork dish Featuring royal Windsor park pork from King Charles private estate, the dish features heritage beetroots with hints of raspberry whilst finishing the pork on our BBQ

Here is our Head Chef Jamie Pearce , busy developing a new menu to be launched next week. Every dish must be cooked to perfection, every ingredient must be perfectly balanced to create a delicious flavour!

Who is joining us next week?

THE PERFECT PLACE TO ENJOY PRE-DRINKS IN THE SUNSHINE
Our L’Ortolan Terrace overlooking the stunning Garden is the ideal place to relax and unwind on a sunny day.
We are offering a delightful outdoor experience, perfect for sipping your favourite refreshing pre-drinks /tasting our delicious canapés and soaking up the tranquil haven under the open sky

The Terrace will be open until mid-September, weather permitting. Occasionally, The L’Ortolan Terrace may need to close unexpectedly due to weather condition. We apologise for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.









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Here’s our incredible team led by our new head chef Jamie preparing latest additions to our summer menu in the kitchen. Every little detail matters when our chefs are working hard to create the best possible dining experience for all of you!

We have received the Harden’s Certificate of Achievement 2024 Diner Survey noting our very high quality food.

We are very pleased as this award comes from both votes of diners and Harden’s editors recognising the excellent quality of our dishes. Thank you for your continued support and loyalty

Exciting news!! 🤩

We are delighted to announce a new Head Chef, Jamie Pearce, who will takeover on 4th June 2024.

Jamie brings with him over a decade of senior Chef experience, having worked at a host of renowned fine dining and Michelin-starred restaurants. Most recently he joins us from The Montagu Arms where he was head chef of the fine dining Terrace restaurant, and prior to this he worked at Cliveden House (3 AA rosette), Moorhall (2 Michelin star), Whatley Manor (2 Michelin star), the Black Rat (1 Michelin star) and had a successful Stagiare at 3 Michelin star Maaemo in 2019.

Commenting on his new appointment, Jamie said: “It is a massive honour for me to be taking the position of head chef at L’Ortolan - a real destination with such an established culinary heritage, developed through a history of many talented chefs. With a strong team behind me, I look forward to building on L’Ortolan’s rightful place within the UK’s fine dining scene, while bringing many new ideas and dishes to the restaurant that provide the best experience for diners possible.”

We are back to having our beloved salt-aged Yorkshire beef back on the menu accompanied with slow braised oxtail. Locally the wild garlic is springing up around the countries streams and our kitchen team are regularly foraging to use the freshest possible leaves!

*Smoked Oxtail *Morels *Wild Garlic

We are coming into that time of year again with new season asparagus, morels, the first Gariguette strawberries and much more! We are currently finalising our new strawberry dish with our new Head pastry chef Gilles!

Poached guinea fowl finished with crispy skin .
Garnished with pink fir potatoes, tenderstem broccoli and a broccoli and cashew pesto

* broccoli *cashew *pink fir potato

Roasted parsnip agnolotti

Served with smoked Cornish mussels, pickled Buddah hand and foraged sea weeds

*Cornish mussels *sea weeds *Buddah hand

Our 8 course tasting menu features our Pear dessert.
This dessert uses sweet pears in various forms and textures paired with chestnut, vanilla and bay leaves. Our twist on this dessert is a touch of gorgonzola in the ice cream

*Yoghurt *Chesnut *Gorgonzola

On our 8 course menu we have locally sourced Venison.
The venison is pan seared served with a Delica pumpkin puree, preserved blackcurrants and roasted maitake mushrooms.
The dish is finished with bitter Italian leaves and a venison jus made with all the venison bones and finished with a cassis liquor.

*Radicchio *Maitake *Delica Pump

On lunch menu we serve our take on a Vichyssoises.
We make a traditional leek and potato velouté and serve it with potatoes cooked in seaweed stock and charred leeks. This is finished with a salt cod croquette fried in local beer batter.

*Salt Cod Brandade *Leek *Kombu

Citrus tart

Our desert from the 6-course tasting menu is a tart featuring various citrus fruits. It is finished with fresh blood orange, stem ginger ice-cream and a honeycomb made using local honey

* Stem Ginger *Buttermilk *Stella’s Honey

Our Winter Minestrone features 48 hour braised ox tongue , served with sautéed root vegetables, crispy shallots and a rich broth made with root vegetable and beef stock , finished with bone marrow

*Smoked Ox Tongue *Spelt *Roots

Heritage Carrots🥕
 
Our Heritage carrot dish uses the best seasonal baby Norfolk carrots from across the south of England.
These sweet carrots are paired with a whipped Ewe’s curd with a citrus touch of acidity, Tarragon and our homemade lamb bacon using a lesser used cut, the lamb belly

*Ewe’s Curd *Homemade Lamb Bacon *Tarragon

We are hiring 🍽️

To apply please send a CV to [email protected]

Apricot Tart

Our summer inspired apricot tart, straight from our lunch menu!
Fresh cherries and apricots
Toasted almonds
Amaretto glaze
Frangipane ice cream
Marigold leaves

To Celebrate Summer, we bring you our first Cocktail Masterclass!

Our mixologist will take you through a step-by-step process of putting together the most enjoyable cocktails.
You will learn how to create 3 classic cocktails alongside 1 exclusive cocktail from our award winning bartender Jayson, whilst tucking into a selection of our canapes!
Up to 6 spaces available
Pre-payment required upon the time of booking.
Friday 18th August 2023
Masterclass £55 per person
Masterclass followed by our Six-course tasting £125 per person.
5:30pm – 6:30pm
4 cocktails (3 classic 1 exclusive)
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Cornish lobster 🦞

Butter poached Cornish Lobster tail

Compressed honey and Charentais melon
Pickled cucumber
42-month aged Iberico ham
Arbequina olive oil ajo blanco
Sea purslane
Lobster bisque glaze

One of our current starters available on our 6 and 8 course tasting menus

WATENSHI GIN EVENT

EXCLUSIVE WATENSHI DINNER
Friday 22nd September
7pm
On the 22nd of September we will be joined by William Lowe MW the Master Distiller at Cambridge Distillery who will be talking about the world’s most exclusive gin.

Enjoy an exceptional four course tasting menu perfectly balanced and paired with a selection of different cocktails, finishing with Watenshi.

£200pp
Limited availability

Watenshi specialises itself on being a tiny fraction of spirit that escapes during distillation. The unique process behind preserving this gin includes utilising atmospheric pressure alongside temperatures on par with the coldest ever day recorded in the South Pole to create what is known as the best gin worldwide. William will be discussing each step of the process and why it takes over fifty distilleries to create one single bottle of Watenshi.

Our fish course - Ballotine of lightly salted Peterhead cod, Orkney scallop mousse with Scottish girolles and hazelnuts finished with a split grapefruit and chive beurre blanc

We have zero waste from this dish!

All of our cod trim and crispy skin is used to make the salt cod croquette on the side. It is then finished with a nasturtium emulsion made using the leaves from our own garden

Salt Aged Yorkshire Lamb

Our current lamb main course for our 6 and 8 course tasting menu

Salt aged Yorkshire lamb
Braised lamb fa**ot
Wye Valley asparagus
Wild asparagus
Chervil emulsion
Summer savoury puree

The salt aging process uses a chamber with blocks of Himalayan salt. This intensifies the flavour and texture of the meat providing us with a full flavour, tender lamb for our dishes

Evesham Strawberry

Our Evesham strawberry dessert 🍓

Strawberry mousse
Whipped mascarpone infused with lemon balm
Macerated Evesham strawberries
Pink peppercorn glass tuile
All finished with a velvety fennel ice cream which we make by braising fennel in sweetened apple juice and cooking into a crème anglaise base

Certain to tingle the taste buds!

One of our latest TripAdvisor reviews!

A wonderful dining experience - L'Ortolan, Reading Traveller Reviews - Tripadvisor Review of L'Ortolan, Reading: A wonderful dining experience

Cornish Lobster

It doesn’t get much fresher than this!

Our native Cornish lobsters courtesy of our supplier Flying Fish Seafoods, delivered fresh to us and expertly prepared by our chefs to create our lobster starter🦞

Did you know?….

Lobsters feed at night on the seabed to avoid predators during the day. They are very well-equipped hunters due to their two claws. One larger claw is for gripping and crushing their prey, and the second is thinner and sharp to help them cut up their food.

You can find our lobster starter on our eight-course tasting menu below!

https://lortolan.com/restaurant-reading-best-french-fine-dining-menus/ -course-tasting

Here is our latest review!

Amazing dining experience - L'Ortolan, Reading Traveller Reviews - Tripadvisor Review of L'Ortolan, Reading: Amazing dining experience

Check out our latest rave review on !