The Square

Most of our food is self-service, some items are served to ensure availability for all but you may come back for more once you have finished the first portion.

It certainly is! Have a look at the Clever Cuisine Nutrition page and also our Wellness Portal to see all the great things we do. Cooking from scratch gives us the ability to leave out various nasty ingredients. If after looking at our pages you feel we aren't offering anything healthy, please request a face to face meeting letting us know what you want to talk about (the more detail the better) and we’ll send the most appropriate and senior member of the team to talk to you. We are always happy to work with you to ensure you eat how you want to.

Many of the food items we sell take several hours to cook, some up to 24 hours, and as they don’t come out of a packet, this does mean we run out of certain dishes. Our team use their knowledge of what sells, and what doesn’t sell, to try to get the numbers correct but this doesn’t always work. While it is annoying when things run out, it is also a good thing we don't have packets of highly processed food in the freezer....

Absolutely not. We cook our food from scratch each day from the freshest ingredients we have available to us and are reducing the number of deep fat fryers across our sites, using seasonal ingredients and avoiding processed foods, bases, pastes, preservatives etcetera. Our teams don’t like fryers as they are unpleasant to use and make you smell, so we keep frying to a minimum. Park Eat, Eat at the Square, Wantage and St. Patrick's are all working on phasing out fryers, so are focussed on oven baking items. Our Wellness Portal displays the nutritional value of the majority of items we serve.

All chicken and lamb we cook with is Halal and is slaughtered in a humane manner that is approved by the RSPCA. Beef is not currently certified as Halal as it comes from our own farm and our local butcher isn't certified Halal. At Bars and Dining locations, our food is labelled on counters indicating whether or not it is suitable for a Halal diet. Park Eat, Wantage, Eat at the Square and St. Patrick's can cater for a Halal diet with a wide range of choice. At Park House and The Dairy, only vegetarian and vegan dishes are suitable for Halal diets.

Please contact the Clever Cuisine Team via email or in person at the Concierge Desk. We cook from scratch in kitchens handling multiple allergens so there is a risk of cross-contamination so those with severe allergies should ask before eating. If you are on a Clever Cuisine Eating Plan please book a time to see our Head Chef so we can tailor our services to you. You are also welcome to ask our staff to change their gloves or wash their hands before serving you due to your allergies.

The University is investing to continually improving the student experience and while we aim to keep disruption to a minimum sometimes we do need to adjust services/offerings. Currently we are working on specific projects to replace our  IT systems, food counters, furniture and decor with changes being made in the Summer Vacation periods.

We love all feedback as it helps us improve our services. Please provide as much detail as possible, including where and when, as it really helps us. All our team members will give you their name if requested. Certain staff in some areas may only give you first name and initial for privacy reasons. Feel free to drop us an email clevercuisine@reading.ac.uk , or we have feedback forms on our outlet pages.