Tod's Cambridge Town Guide

Trockel Ulmann und Freunde

2006-10-27T23:48:00.000Z

(££) ***1/2 This little German-run brightly-coloured soup cafe on Pembroke Street is literally at the heart of the universty centre. Three different fresh, homemade and generaly delicious soups are dished up each day, and the atmosphere is bustling with students and academics from the nearby New Museums and Downing sites. The walls are decorated with old art and theatre posters, and the atmosphere is convivial and animated, despite the strangely dour staff. Unattractive features include the baguette sandwiches offered as accompaniment to the soups are routinely dry and unappetising, as is the murky, gungy filter coffee that goes under the name of 'espresso'. There are no proper tables and chairs, only tall stools to perch on - a fact which discourages one from lingering for a leisurely lunch. Yet in spite of all this, Trockel Ulmann and Freunde remains a very pleasant and well-loved spot for a quick lunch.

Pembroke College Bar and Coffee Shop

2006-10-02T16:45:00.000Z

Y (£) ***** Pembroke is the latest college to re-invent its bar-cum-common room as a cafe serving top-notch Italian coffee. We were impressed enough by the stylish decor in this carefully-preserved set of Edwardian rooms in the centre of the college to conclude that it has overtaken King's Coffee shop as the most pleasant university cafe venue. It feels like something crossed between a youthful cutting-edge bar in a wealthy continental city and a gentlemen's club. It is open to members of the university, and, as far as we could tell, members of the public. At night, the coffee shop morphs into the college bar.

La Raza

2006-09-26T21:58:00.000Z

(£££) *** We were pleasantly surprised with an al fresco lunch at La Raza (Rose Crescent), the only establishment serving decent tapas in the city. By contrast to The Bun Shop/'Alchemy' Bistro's greasy, unimaginative tapas, or the defrosted bits of rubbish La Tasca attempts to pass off as food, La Raza serves fresh, innovative dishes using seasonal ingredients. A plate of baked figs with goat's cheese was the perfect dish for late September. The fact that we felt quite well-fed with only this and a plate of bruschetta with copious tomato and pesto salsa is testament to the entirely adequate size of La Raza's portions. All this comes at a price, however, and this moderate meal for two with two glasses of house wine set us back well over £30. In the warmer months, La Raza is an outdoor cafe in the busy Rose Crescent. La Raza's other reincarnation is as a very stylish basement nightclub, where this excellent food is also served. (reviewed separately under Nightlife).

Dave's Fish and Chips (Sheringham)

2006-06-01T17:54:00.000Z

Y (££) *** For a set price, you get chips, mushy peas, milky tea, tartar sauce and more fried fish than you can shake a stick at at Dave's Fish and Chips in Sheringham, a typical North Norfolk seaside town an hour's drive from Cambridge (also accessible by train via Norwich). It doesn't get any more traditional and full-fat than this, and, although the menu features a la carte items, the majority of patrons, almost exclusively local families, order the set meal. Come on a Sunday afternoon to see North Norfolk coastal society out in full force.

Cambridge Union Bar

2006-06-01T17:46:00.000Z

(£) *** Entrance to the Cambridge Union Bar (Bridge Street), open every night, is technically restricted to members and their guests. The bar is atmospheric and grandly old-fashioned, and in the evenings after a debate or lecture, you’re more likely than not to run into someone famous there, or at least mix with future cabinet members and MPs. The Union often throws parties here, and on certain nights the bar will remain open until 1 AM. Coming here and watching the slightly obnoxious Tory undergraduates that run the society in action is always an edifying experience.

Savino's

2006-06-01T17:34:00.000Z

(£££) * Savino's has the look and feel of an authentic provincial Italian cafe, although the sort one would avoid if one actually was in Italy. It serves tasty but very overpriced panini and decent coffee. However, the nasty, superior macho staff alone make this cafe one to avoid. It's location at the heart of the bus station means that the cafe is generally filled with exhaust fumes and the experience of sitting on the street at one of its two outdoor tables is dismally coloured grey fumes and revving motors.

Our Ratings Explained

2006-04-17T13:57:00.000Z

Our Ratings

(£) to (£££££) Price on a scale of 5 (£ being a real bargain, £££££ being quite extravagant)

* to ***** Our opinion of quality on a scale of 5 (* being not worth a visit, ***** one of the nicest places in Cambridge)

Y = Coup de Coeur

The Van of Life, Van of Death

2006-04-15T21:45:00.000Z

(£) **½ The vans of life and death are two mobile units dispensing kebabs, burgers and chips to mostly drunken students and locals from 9 PM until 3 AM. Both have become something of essential Cambirdge institutions. Depending on the time of the year, one encounters either a friendly, chatty crowd in the queue waiting for food, or downright aggressive drunks. Especially in the winter months, the heart of Cambridge takes on a ghostly, desolate air, and the market square with its two vans becomes, for better or worse, the animated centre of post-closing-time social life in the centre. Read an interview here.

King's Vac Bar

2006-04-13T22:58:00.000Z

Y (£) ***** If you can manage to get through the gates before they shut for the night, King’s Vac Bar (inside King’s College, two stories above the main bar) is by far the best place to go for cocktails in central Cambridge during out-of-term time. Extremely potent concoctions with creative names (e.g. ‘something in your pigeonhole’) start at just £2. The crowd is mostly pleasant and very gay-friendly, and the selection of music is always excellent. Red walls and dim lighting create a relaxed atmosphere. The bar is open from 10 until midnight, although if you are not a member of the college, it will be impossible to exit through the front gates unless the porters let you out or you are with someone from the college. The schedule of opening times can be found here.

Sino Tap

2006-04-13T22:02:00.000Z

(£££) * Following the unfortunate dismantling of the friendly old Town and Gown, the premises at Pound Hill briefly became a venture known as the Rope and Twine. We re-discovered it with most recently with great expectation as a Chinese cuisine-cum-real ale establishment, The Sino Tap. Initially, the combination seemed quite promising - we looked forward to gourmet Chinese cuisine similar to the likes of that at Peking (Burleigh Street), but a bit less expensive, with a good selection of beers to accompany it. We were sorely disappointed. We were served tiny, overpriced portions of gloopy, unimaginative pan-Chinese fare, and the one real ale from the miniscule selection available proved to have run out. In the end, our meal was so unsatisfactory we went down the road for another lunch at the Castle Inn (Castle Hill).

The Castle Inn

2006-04-13T21:36:00.000Z

(££) *** The Castle Inn (Castle Hill) is a pleasant pub on Castle Hill that scores points on all fronts. It has a cosy, woody old fashioned interior and antiques. It boasts a very large selection of food, including daily specials, curries, sandwiches at lunchtime and a good offering of traditional English pub food. There are a regular guest ales featured, many of them local. The Sunday roast, with all the trimmings, is especially copious. In the summer, it has a large terrace open in the back.

The Free Press

2006-04-13T15:15:00.000Z

(£££) *** The Free Press (Prospect Row) is one of Cambridge’s two non-smoking, non-mobile-phone pubs (you’ll be fined £1 if they see you texting inside!). It’s a pleasant haven in the winter months, with an open fire and a good variety of real ales and whiskies. Low ceilings, old woodwork, antiques, and a lack of piped music, create a calm atmosphere. There is also a pleasant courtyard garden at the back. The kitchen serves a hearty, eclectic menu, a step up from normal pub food. Wine, however, is overpriced. The landlady can be downright aggressive, and the pub is disproportionately favoured by arrogant academics with beards who have built their own reclining bicycles.

Darwin College Bar

2006-04-13T15:07:00.000Z

(£) *** Long one of the few bars in central Cambridge to remain open until midnight, Darwin College Bar (Darwin College, Silver Street), strung through the ground floor rooms of an old Victorian house, is popular with overseas postgraduate students and features billiards and table football. Drinks prices are well below average, and the bar is known for its large selection of whiskies. In theory, the bar is only for the use of college members and their guests, a rule that is occasionally enforced. The college often holds bops at weekends, although on these occasions non-members must be signed in, and there is generally an admission charge of £3.

The Champion of The Thames

2006-04-13T14:41:00.000Z

Y (££) **** The Champion of the Thames (King Street), is a cosy place, favoured by college porters and immortalised in various novels about Cambridge (most famously, in Porterhouse Blue). Although the selection of beers is uninspired, visitors will be entertained by a plethora of local characters that have become fixtures here. Like many Cambridge pubs, this one has a rowing theme, and is inviting in the winter, with old wooden alcoves and a real coal fire.

The St. Radegund

2006-04-13T14:30:00.000Z

Y (£££) **** Upon entering The Saint Radegund (King Street), Cambridge’s smallest pub, one can’t help but feel that one has penetrated into some private social club where strangers are a bizarre novelty for the staff and regulars. Nonetheless, this freehouse, a veritable Cambridge institution, is cosy and charmingly decorated with Jesus college memorabilia, old maps of Cambridge and antiques. Specialties include Vera Lynn cocktails, and four-pint pitchers, which are sold at a reduced rate. Our only quibble with the Radedund is the fact that a small glass of bog-standard vin de table remains wildly overpriced at £2.50. Saint Radegund is taken from a sixth century saint who gave his name to the Benedictine monastery of St. Mary and St. Radegund, on whose remains Jesus College now stands. No food served.

Casimir

2006-04-13T13:41:00.001Z

(££) ** Casimir (King Street) is a Polish-run café with an almost endless combination of different types of sandwiches, copious salads, and well-prepared fresh soups. Brightly coloured furniture and walls, hung with local artwork, create a certain feeling of Californian-style urban buzz. Unfortunately quality has gone down considerably since its earlier years - nearly everytime we've been in the past year at least one of our orders has been botched and has had to be sent back. A favourite of postgraduate students and academic staff, it can become very crowded at lunchtimes, and it is often difficult to find a seat. Freshly made cakes, especially the chocolate brownies, are amongst the best in Cambridge. Strangely, this café has no customer toilet. Open only for lunch.

Clown's

2006-04-07T21:55:00.000Z

Y (£) **** Clowns’ (King Street) remains the most character-filled café in Cambridge. Its staff (in fact, one extended Italian family) is renowned and well-loved by many, and it’s generally full most afternoons with a lively, interesting crowd. The café’s clients are fairly evenly divided between university students and people from the town, which makes for a pleasant and less pretentious atmosphere than in some of the other establishments in the centre of the city. It serves hearty if uninspired Italian food, and, importantly, beer and wine until midnight most nights. Coming for a late dinner is an experience, when many of Cambridge’s more colourful local characters converge here to eat and gossip.

Michaelhouse Cafe

2006-04-07T21:45:00.000Z

(££) **½ Michaelhouse Café (Trinity Street) offers a glimpse into the interior of what would have been one of Cambridge’s oldest colleges, Michaelhouse, being set up on two levels in the ex-college’s former chapel. Henry VIII dissolved Michaelhouse College, founded in 1324, in 1540 to create Trinity College, and the building now houses a vegetarian café and a community centre. The food really does taste healthy, albeit a bit bland, apparently because it is made with less salt than normal, and emphasises raw vegetables and pulses. The Independent just voted it one of the top 50 cafes in the UK - but we're not quite sure why.

The Bun Shop

2006-04-07T00:26:00.000Z

Y(££)***½ The Bun Shop (King Street), a series of rooms each with a different ambience and menu, is a friendly, central place. Although most well-known for its middling tapas, we prefer the British-inspired food, which is consistently well-prepared and priced. The dining areas have a surprisingly old, woody country inn feel, considering the establishment is housed in a 1970s development bloc. The dining room on the left, lit by candlelight and serving well-priced wines, is the ideal spot for an intimate dinner.

The Fort St. George

2006-04-07T00:22:00.000Z

(££)*** The Fort St George (Midsummer Common) was once on an island in the Cam. It derives its name from a fort built by the East India Company, which the building resembles. The pub's chief asset is its extremely picturesque location on the banks of the river, facing midsummer common. You can have your pint sitting in the garden facing the common, or on the riverbank, watching the boats go by. The hearty pub food and Sunday roast are generally above average, and in the winter months they lay on wood fires in the old wood panelled rooms.

Indigo's

2006-04-07T00:13:00.000Z

Y (££) **** Indigo’s (St Edward’s passage), remains at the heart and soul of Cambridge young Bohemia. A tiny, character-filled cottage on two levels in a tiny, quaint passage between King’s Parade and the Market Square, it’s one of the best places to go to find out about plays, poetry readings, and concerts. Although the coffee itself tends to be mediocre and overly milky, they do good sandwiches and a delicious hummus platter. It’s also one of the few places in Cambridge you can find good bagels with cream cheese. In the summer, it’s nice to take chairs and coffee and sit in the nearby leafy churchyard across the passage.

The Cambridge Blue

2006-04-06T23:53:00.000Z

(£££) ***½ The Cambridge Blue (Gwydir Street) friendly and large neighbourhood freehouse, Cambridge’s other non-smoking, non-mobile-phone public house. Favoured by academics, The Cambridge Blue nonetheless has a more relaxed atmosphere than The Free Press. It’s decorated with old rowing paraphernalia, and has a good selection of real ales and ciders, many sourced from producers in the area directly around Cambridge. It makes an ideal summer pub, with a long and beautiful garden sloping down to Petersfield Cemetery, through which you can cross to the streets near Parker's Piece. A wide variety of healthy, organic food is on offer, and the staff is friendly.

College Halls

2006-04-06T23:43:00.000Z

College Halls open to all members of the university and, in practice, the cash-paying general public include King’s, Peterhouse, Pembroke, and Downing. All serve passable food, although King’s has a wider choice of meals, generally offering three or four main courses and an extensive salad bar. Downing offers by far the highest quality of food, although choice is limited. Its plasticy dining hall is much less interesting than those of the other three colleges, whose interiors warrant a visit for their decoration alone. All four charge an additional guest fee of £1

The King Street Run

2006-04-06T23:35:00.000Z

Y (££) *** Though not a venue for live music, the King Street Run (King Street) plays good indie music at high volume in its most uniquely-decorated upstairs room, which feels like something between a pirate ship and a scene from the Wild West. Popular with sixth-formers and goths, it’s a nice and convivial place to come for cheap drinks in a big group, on one’s way out for a big night. Not recommended for a quiet pint.

The Mill

2006-04-06T23:11:00.000Z

(££) *** The Mill (Mill Lane), popular with students who buy beer in plastic glasses to sit on the banks of the nearby Mill Pond, is also a pleasant and central place to sit inside in the winter months. It has old wooden tables, and a diverse selection of beers. For a convenient, central drink after work, you could do much worse. We prefer the Mill to its obvious local rival, The Anchor (Silver Street), which has had a fairly generic redecoration, and caters to a more obnoxious crowd.

The Geldart

2006-04-06T22:39:00.000Z

(££) **½ The Geldart (Ainsworth Street) is best visited in the early evening or late afternoon. The charm of this local Irish pub in one of the lesser-known areas off Mill Road lies in the fact that it has seen no re-decoration since the 1950s, and manages to preserve an almost out-of-time quality. It features painted walls, wooden furniture, and intriguing decorations. However, once punters arrive and the big screen televisions in both bars are turned on, however, the charm disappears. The selection of beers is below average, and the pub does not serve food.

Peking Restaurant

2006-04-06T18:31:00.000Z

Y (££££)**** Described by the Sunday Telegraph as the ‘best restaurant in Cambridge,’ this small room in a tiny building next to the Grafton Centre that is Peking Restaurant (Burleigh Street) serves exquisite Chinese food. Dishes are rich, intricate, and very copious—well worth the slightly higher-than-average prices. Dining here is a unique experience. The plain, wood-veneer panelled room is often empty, and there is a slightly eerie silence pervading the whole place. Cash only.

The Live and Let Live

2006-04-06T18:10:00.000Z

Y (££) ***** We are still in love with The Live and Let Live (Mawson Road), perhaps Cambridge’s finest local pub. It's a real ale aficionado’s dream with a large and ever-changing variety of stouts and bitters, mostly from small breweries in the East of England. Low ceilings, old wooden furniture, and a local busker playing protest songs on his guitar at weekends complete the atmosphere in this popular freehouse. Staff and regulars are friendly, and, unlike some of the other Cambridge real ale pubs, unpretentious. Soups, a plate of bangers and mash with red cabbage, other traditional pub fare and marvellous desserts are on offer as well.

Cotto

2006-04-06T17:32:00.000Z

(£££) ***½ Tucked away in a little courtyard off of a rather dismal section bit of the East Road, Cotto serves up tasty, healthy and innovative lunchtime cuisine. The ambience is warm and friendly, with wooden furniture and pots of herbs growing in the windows. We had a nutty soup of parsnips and cashews, a trio of salads including a tasty green lentil and spanish sausage combination, and cheddar cheese sandwishes with caramelised onion chutney. With a 50l carafe of French wine, it all came to a very reasonable £22. This is an oasis of organic, creative fare, and the only drawback is that both staff and clientele - who tend towards smug Guardian-readers with loud, boastfully precocious children - are all too aware of this.

The Kingston Arms

2006-03-23T20:37:00.000Z

Y (££££) **** The Kingston Arms (Kingston Street) is a popular gastropub whose food merits its higher-than-average prices. The recently-renovated interior is stunning and understated, and there is a good selection of local ales on tap. The subject of several favourable reviews in the national press, it has become so oversubscribed that reservations for dinner are essential several days in advance, even during the week. There is free internet access, a real fire in the winter, and a pleasant garden for the summer. Voted East Anglia’s best place for cheap eats by The Observer.