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Bonjour Cote Brassiere!

After a lovely walk with our dogs around the Wrekin and plenty of fresh air in our lungs, visiting our favourite French restaurant just seemed the perfect way to spend our Sunday afternoon.

Arriving around 3pm at Cote brassiere in Shrewsbury, we took a seat in one of the side booths and began perusing the Prestige Set Menu. The Prestige menu is superb value for money with two courses for £15.95 or three for £18.95 and available from 12 noon till close Monday – Thursday and 12noon to 7pm Friday - Sunday. As always, all staff are so polite and friendly with a great knowledge of all food and drink.

For starters you have a choice of 6 dishes ranging from soup, fish, pork, salad, even muscles. The French onion soup took my fancy, I’d not had this in years, whilst the pork rillettes was Pauls choice. Both arriving quite swiftly and presented beautifully we couldn’t wait to get started. My authentic French soup was delicious, the lovely thin consistency of the broth with plenty of caramelised onions, topped with a thick sourdough croute and lots of melted comté cheese. I was really happy with the temperature of the soup too, so often when ordering soup out I have had to wait ten minutes for it to cool before eating, but this was perfect, hot but not scolding, very enjoyable.

Pauls pork rillettes was a course homemade pate, hand shredded pork slightly seasoned with brandy, wholegrain mustard and thyme, the chunks of meat were really tasty and not over powered by the seasoning. The accompanying toasted sourdough slices, drizzled with oil, were the essential companion and the cornichons added a tangy crunch. Two superb and faultless starters.

As we awaited our mains the supervisor Nevan came to talk to us and remembered us from previous visits, which was really lovely. We chatted about how fantastic the food was and Nevan mentioned how all food is sourced from France, which was good to know and certainly the reason for it all tasting so authentic.

Our mains had arrived, two very different dishes, I had chosen the 8oz chargrilled ribeye steak (£2.50 supplement) with frites and garlic butter and Paul had chosen the fish parmentier. I had ordered the tomato salad with basil and shallots to accompany my steak and Paul had chosen the French beans. Both dishes looked superb and I was delighted with a pot of garlic butter rather than it just melting on my steak. My steak was cooked medium and my knife had no work to do as it just glided through the most incredible flavoursome ribeye, it really was superb. The accompanying French fries were great and tasted even better dipped in the garlic butter. I have always loved all dishes at Cote Brassiere, but this steak deserved a medal! The fresh tomato salad was drizzled with balsamic vinegar and topped with diced shallots and basil, a good choice to add to the steak.

Paul described his dish as a very posh fish pie, chunks of tender cod, haddock, salmon and juicy prawns in a creamy white wine and leek sauce all topped with piped latticed mash potato and gruyére cheese. All the fish was delicious, the leeks were cooked al dente keeping plenty of flavour. The mashed potato was seasoned to perfection and Paul mentioned it was like a lucky dip of what fish he was going to discover next under the creamy mash. The French beans were cooked to perfection, slightly crunchy and full of flavour.

So, we arrived at the desserts. There wasn’t many desserts we hadn’t previously tried although Paul did mention the crumble aux pommes and vanilla ice cream, whilst I was toying between the chocolate mousse and crème caramel, secretly hoping Paul would share them both. After much toying our lovely waiter suggested we had all three, well we had walked 4 miles around the Wrekin – so why not!

Wow, the crumble aux pommes was certainly a dessert we had been missing out on, warm tender chunks of delicious apple with a cinnamon seasoning and a superb crumble topping. The melting ice cream that topped the crumble just made everything even creamier. The chocolate mousse is simply chocolate heaven and I oddly describe this as thick and creamy yet light and airy, a pure chocolate treat but not too heavy. Even with these two faultless desserts pure credit needs to go to the créme caramel, I don’t know how Cote do it, but they produce the best version of this dessert – ever!

Yet again a beautiful experience, faultless food, service and atmosphere. What ever your taste Cote Brassiere have it covered and will make you feel special. They also have seating outside so you can enjoy the spring in style in Shrewsbury Square.