Satnam and Susan’s Website

Visitor’s Guide to Eating and Drinking in Cambridge

Welcome to Cambridge, UK. Unfortunately, Cambridge has very few restaurants of any note and your best bet is to take the fast train to London. However, if you are determined to eat here then these places might be worth a try.

Excellent Places to Eat

• Midsummer House.
  It has two Michelin stars and costs a fortune but serves the best food in Cambridge.

Very Good Places to Eat

• Alimentum.
  Very good food and service at a good price-performance ratio.
• Hotel du Vin.
  Good food at medium-high prices with variable but often OK service. The bar downstairs has an excellent selections of whisky and beer.
• The Oak Bistro.
  A new very good restaurant in Cambridge.
• Cotto. 
  Not as good as when Jack was in the kitchen but still very good food and good value for money.

Good Places to Eat

• Peking.
  Good spicy Chinese food (Hunan Prawns are the stand-out dish here). Appalling decor, cramped  and they are too tight to accept credit or debit cards.
• Calcutta Club Indian Soul Food.
  A interesting new Indian restaurant on Mill Road.
• Zizzi.  
  If you are determined to eat at a chain restaurant then this is one of the better bets.
• Efes. 80 King Street.
  Decent Turkish restaurant.

It probably won’t kill you to eat at…

• Little Seoul. 
  OK Korean food. Not very expensive. Poor wine selection. Dubious service.

Good Pubs and Gastro-Pubs

• The Castle.  A very good normal pub without attitude or pretensions.
• The Cock in Hemingford Grey. http://www.cambscuisine.com/TheCock/index.html
  Very good pub food and good wine selection in a beautiful village.
• The Crown and Punchbowl  in Horningsea. http://www.thecrownandpunchbowl.co.uk/
  Excellent pub food.
• The Plough in Coton. http://www.theploughatcoton.co.uk/
  Quite good food at this pub in a village just slightly to the west of Cambridge. Daily scallop dish is often very good. Pizzas are better than average.
• The Hole in the Wall. http://www.the-holeinthewall.com/
  Very good food at the village pub just slightly east of Cambridge.

The Three Horseshoes at Madingley. http://www.huntsbridge.com/thethreehorseshoes.php
The food can be very good at this posh pub but the service is often far from perfect.

Bad experiences at…

• Jamie’s. http://www.jamieoliver.com/italian/cambridge 
  Fairly standard Italian fare but you have to pay extra for the celebrity chef association and it is simply not worth it. No reservations. Go to Zizzi instead.
• Backstreet Bistro. http://www.back-street.co.uk/
  Poor service.
• Restaurant Felix at Hotel Felix. http://www.hotelfelix.co.uk/fmi/restaurant/index.html
  Clearly this wants to be a posh restaurant but the food does not quite cut it and the service is haphazard.
• Chez Gerard. http://www.brasseriechezgerard.co.uk/locations_cambridge.html
  Food without passion on an industrial scale.
• Pizza Express. http://www.pizzaexpress.com/rest/rd100.htm
  Nice venue but disappointing pizzas and a bit of a zoo.
• Teri-Aki. http://www.teri-aki.co.uk/
  Absolutely appalling Japanese restaurant. Aki-Teri is just as bad. Awful service.
• Loch Fyne. http://www.lochfyne.com/pages/content.asp?PageID=260&RestID=49
  Some things are OK but many are not and sadly Loch Fyne Corp seems to have lost the plot. Last time I went there (October 2009) I had polystyrene in my food.
• The Brassiere at John Lewis. http://www.johnlewis.com/Shops/DSShop.aspx?Id=12
  Perhaps it is just start-up issues.
• Rice Boat. http://www.riceboat.com/
  Good south Indian cuisine but ruined by slow service and attitude. Service can be painfully slow and the whole operation seems rather unprofessional. The dosas are noteworthy.
• De Luca. http://www.delucacucina.co.uk/
  Food can be good (although I got food poisoned last time). Poor attitude from chefs and manager.
• Anatolia.
  Poor quality Turkish restaurant.
• Carluccio’s. http://www.carluccios.com/caffes/default.asp?func=where&caffe_id=42&region=6
  Unexciting Italian chain restaurant serving over-priced food.
• The Cambridge Chop House. http://www.cambscuisine.com/thechophouse/
  Nice location opposite King’s College but mediocre food at high prices.
• Ghandi Indian Restaurant, Regent Street.
  Uninspiring British Indian food.

Quick Food

• Pret-a-manger. http://www.pret.com/find_a_pret/shops/shop_32.shtm
  Very good sandwiches.
• Sausage stand in Burleigh Street.

Supermarkets

• Waitrose. http://www.waitrose.com/branches/branchdetails.aspx?uid=651
  Who needs Wholefoods.

Wine Shops

• Cambridge Wine Merchants. http://www.cambridgewine.com/
  Good selection of European wines and Scottish single malts. They also host excellent wine tastings.
• Noel Young Wines. http://www.nywines.co.uk/
  Outstanding collection of New World wines.
• Bacchanalia. 90 Mill Road and 79 Victoria Road.
  Notable independent wine shop with an extensive selection of beers.

Cheese

• Cambridge Cheese Company. 4 All Saints Passage.
  An OK cheese shop but don’t expect anything as good as the Wholefoods cheese counter or I G Mellis.

Meat

• Knibbs.
  Excellent butcher at various locations including Burwash Manor.
• Andrew Northrop Butchers. 114 Mill Road.
  Good butcher that will also order exotic items.
• Origins 8. St. Andrews Road. http://www.localsecrets.com/origin8
  Local meat and produce.
• Gog Magog Farm Shop. http://www.gogmagoghills.com/frameset_index.html
  Local produce from meat to eggs and cheese.

Delicatessen

• The Larder at Burwash Manor.
  Excellent delicatessen.

Fish

• There is no excellent source of fish. Go to Waitrose or to London (e.g. the fish counter at Wholefoods). Some people have recommended the fish van on Wednesday at Mitchum’s corner but I have not tried it.