Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Cambridge
Hardens guides have spent 15 years compiling reviews of the best Cambridge restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 86 restaurants in Cambridge and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Cambridge restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Cambridge Restaurants
1. Pint Shop
British, Modern restaurant in Cambridge
10 Peas Hill - CB2
“Quirky” and “fun” gastroboozer – inspired by early Victorian pubs (and set in a house where EM Forster once lived) – which serves “great beer” and food that’s “adequate in a city not blessed with a lot of high quality alternatives”. Founded in 2014, it has spawned offshoots in Oxford and Birmingham.
2. Restaurant Twenty Two
British, Modern restaurant in Cambridge
22 Chesterton Road - CB4
A well-known Victorian townhouse outside the centre, near Victoria Avenue Bridge, that opened its doors 40 years ago and, as of early 2018, is under young ex-Gordon Ramsay grad Sam Carter and his wife Alexandra (FOH). This has been one of the town’s major culinary destinations for many years: feedback welcomed on his creative modern British grub – changing weekly, and running to five- or seven-course tasting menus.
3. Amelie Flammekueche
British, Modern restaurant in Cambridge
Grafton Centre - CB1
Suffolk restaurateur Regis Crépy, who ran the Great House in Lavenham for 32 years, launched this new Alsatian venture – in a bright yellow Citroën parked in Grafton centre’s funky new food court – with his son Alex in summer 2018; the headline event comes sweet or savoury, and is rounded out by tapas-style starters.
4. Midsummer House
British, Modern restaurant in Cambridge
Midsummer Common - CB4
It has a very “pretty riverside setting” on the Cam in the midst of Midsummer Common, but that’s not why Daniel Clifford’s Victorian Villa is so often hailed as an “amazing destination”. It’s the “stunning cuisine from start to finish” which creates a “seriously top-notch eating experience” with the only option in the evening being an eight-course tasting menu. However, even fans acknowledge that it is decidedly “not cheap (call your bank manager first)”, and while for most diners “it’s well worth every penny”, there is a significant disgruntled minority for whom the final bill is “way over the top”.
5. Cotto
British, Modern restaurant in Cambridge
Gonville Hotel, - CB1
Distinguished chef Hans Schweitzer moved his “always outstanding” restaurant into new purpose-built premises in the Gonville Hotel in 2017 – a “lovely new location” for food that’s “inspired, finely balanced and beautifully presented” and in a culinary style that’s “interesting but grounded in established harmonies and avoiding wackiness”. “It may on first look appear expensive, but it’s worth every penny”.
6. Navadhanya Cambridge
Indian restaurant in Cambridge
73 Newmarket Rd - CB5
This ex-pub is now a “civilised” dining room that’s top of the local subcontinentals; “subtle flavours” (it’s mercifully “not English Indian food”) distinguish the à la carte and seven-course tasting menu.
7. Trinity
British, Modern restaurant in Cambridge
15 Trinity Street - CB2
“Finally a reasonable place in central Cambridge”, right opposite the Great Gate of the namesake college. The interior is stylish and the menu, while “not large”, offers superior seafood and meat, plus “a good choice of wines by the glass or bottle”, helping it to become quite the foodie magnet since opening two years back.
8. The St John’s Chop House
British, Traditional restaurant in Cambridge
21-24 Northampton St - CB3
“Always reliable” and with a “bargain set menu”, this no-nonsense eatery, over two floors of a 19th century brick building, specialises in “delicious” meaty cuisine; “staff are eager to please”.
9. The Cambridge Chop House
British, Traditional restaurant in Cambridge
1 Kings Parade - CB2
Yards from King’s, and with “lovely views” of the college chapel, this attractive, no-nonsense meat specialist continues to win enthusiastic all-round feedback; part of a nine-strong local chain, the owners are now crowdfunding to open two new sites.
10. Oak Bistro
British, Modern restaurant in Cambridge
6 Lensfield Road - CB2
A “very friendly” decade-old bistro that, albeit “very noisy”, wins praise for its “agreeable atmosphere” (especially in the pretty walled garden); the modern Anglo/Euro food doesn’t detract from a visit either.
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Top Cambridge Restaurants
These are the top restaurants in Cambridge based on reviews by Hardens users.
Midsummer House
Cotto
Ristorante Il Piccolo Mondo
Crown & Punchbowl
Yippee Noodle Bar
Navadhanya Cambridge
Petersfield
Efes
Popular Cuisines in Cambridge