The Knowhere Guide

Eating and Drinking in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire*

Cambridge, Cambridgeshire Pubs, Cafes, Coffee Shops and Restaurants

Food

• Burger King in town, not grafton centre one cos its crap
• It's a friday night, and i'm with my mates, craving curry! So we head down to the best place in town...Tandoori Palace down Histon Road. Although the prices aren't cheap, believe you me their reasonable enough for the outstanding qaulity and taste of food they deliver. Moreso the service is exceptionally high, were they actually attend your needs, unlike some other places- who only help you if you look old and wealthy, as they scrounge for a huge tip! So let me assure you when you're in the mood for curry, T.P is just around the corner...so don't MISS IT!
• Who can resist mister burgers or Uncle Franks at market square after last orders or when you get kicked out of clubs. Within 2 minute walk of Toxic8 , Fifth and Fez business for those vans is amazing, the bugger drives a swish Porsche. Franks is cheaper and misters and taste better too. However, hygiene wise it wouldn;t be highly recommended that alcohol and food be mixed for the you may wake up in the early mornings and.... the mess just aint nice. Many have experienced such unfortunate problems. However, the double bacon cheeseburger with chips comes to just under a fiver, very tasty but pricy. As a student i would recommend the visiting of MaccyD's before it closes or before last orders to satsify that stomach. Please note it actually has bouncers sometimes during the weekend, amazing. Got any ID son, i'm only going for a McFlurry!
• KBC on the way to the Junction. Gardinias off Market square any other time.
• Trattoria Pasta Fresca, for the hottest pasta and totty behind an oven. Mill Road. Awesome deserts, if you can face it after all of that lovely food. Oh, and if you are curryish, you cannot beat the Golden Curry, just before the railway bridge on Mill Road.
• Mega Meals
• DOJOs noodle bar. mill lane by the river. huge plateful for £5 and tolerant of hungry sixthformers
• Gardenia
• Rainbow - ok, it's vegetarian, but it tastes great and you really don't miss the meat.
• The Varsity on Regent St is a top place to eat. The Meze is incredible - I went there for my birthday and was treated brilliantly. Loads of food and wine and only came to £20 per person. If anyhone recognises themselves as being the ones who ate all their food, drank loads of wine and then walked out without paying last Saturday, you are wankers. The police are after you because the taxi driver remembers where you live! Ha ha!!!
• Gardenia's (the gardenia) just off market squajust past macdonalds
• Dojo Noodle Bar- situated on 1-2 Milers Yard, Cambridge CB2 1RQ - man this place is heaving!!! no wonder with food that taste so good - plentiful! definite winner and popular too with locals. Tel: 01223 363 471. www.touzai.co.uk
• Bridges (Bridge St) for take-away cakes, sandwiches and bagels (a little pricey though.) Bangkok City (Green St) for down-to-earth Thai. Eraina Taverna (Free School Lane)for cheap Greek, and just about anything else you can think of. Avoid Garfunkel's (Bridge St). Gardie's (Rose Cres) for kebabs at 2am.
• Tony's on Norfok St and the best Thai meal ever at Wrestlers (bands on Fri/Sat)
• Wetherspoons, good food, wicked chocoate fudge cake
• The Gardenia for chips, the Fudge Kitchen for lovely Belgian Chocolate swirl fudge (+ free samples!)
• Browns on Trumpington Street for an excellent atmosphere and home-cooked food. Taj Mahal on Castle Hill for a wicked chicken korma
• All Bar One in St Andrews St does good quality, well price food in relaxed, informal surroundings.
• La Margerita on Bridge Street is fantastic and good value. They also own Don Pasquale on Market Square (darn good calzones!) adn a third place on Rose Crescent, which I've never tried. Gardies (properly Gardenia's) is The place to get a good kebab, and their burgers are pretty mighty too, although I personally prefer good old Mr Burger's.. the van at the Gardie's end of Market Square. (The one at the other end has always been called "The Death Van", and the urban legend is something to do with glass in someone's burger....) (There are HUNDREDS of other places.)
• Don Pasquales Italian cafe ,top coffee,pizzas and great restaraunt upstairs. KBC takeaway on Hills road [Parkers piece end] life saver from serious case of the munchies.
• The Thai Regent on Regent Street is an oft-overlooked but superb Thai restaurant. There's also the Rainbow Vegetarian Bistro near the colleges.
• Fish and Chicken. Edible if your wankered.
• Hobb's Pavilion on Parker's Piece serves excellent pancakes, home made ice cream etc.
• Tatties is the best! Cheep good food....very nice.
• Surprising paucity of what might be called 'fine food' restaurants in Cambridge. But I can recommend Restaurant Number 22 on Chesterton Lane. At around 20 quid a head for dinner it ain't cheap but in terms of value it beats Midsummer House hands down. Perfect place for a date.
• The Rainbow Bistro is crap, whoever likes it is mad. They serve vegan wine for fucks sake. The Copper Kettle is brilliant, you can sit there with one pot of tea a book or paper and a packet of fags and watch the world (and everyone you know) go by. Pub food - the Granta and the Anchor are my favourites. Curry - the India House in Newnham is a classic, the Taj Mahal (i think) on Mill Lane is new but cheap and cheerful. always full of football teams. all you can eat plus live bands for about 6 quid in the fresher and firkin - can't remember which night but not to be missed. gardies and the death van on market square have to be done once, but easily forgotten. "Pizza Lane", (ie Pizza Express at 7a Jesus Lane) is brilliant - normal pizza express but really cool restaurant, live music etc. brilliant. Clowns 2 - one of the best kept secrets. Above the Arts cinema, amazingly cool cafe bar, open all hours, the kind of place where you can pretend to be a wildly fashionable lefty intellectual shrouded in Gauloise smoke, or an Italian football player, and get away with it.
• Gardies is the place to go for burgers, chips, kebabs and Greek stuff. It's just around the corner from McDonalds, which it beats hands down for value for money, and it's open until about 3am. In the daytime try the cafe upstairs in Woolworths, which does amazing breakfast fry-ups and cheap tea+scones in the afternoons.
• Efe's on King Street has great Turkish, and the Muffin Shop (yes, the Muffin Shop), also on King has pretty good tapas. Neither are particularly cheap, however. Zak's is complete crap for Mexican food (take it from a Californian).
• Check out Gardenia's Takeaway, though. Good food there. The best chilli burger in the whole world is served in Sultan's Restaurant which is on Hills Road, in between the train station and the city centre.
• With regards to food, I have only one thing to say: on Mill Road, which is basically the Anglia University student ghetto, you will find the best kebab shop in the world - the Bosphorus. Their speciality, apart from being really friendly geezers and Zorba dancing to James Brown behind the counter, is the spicy potato - basically roast potatoes with a spicy coating. They're amazing.
• Rainbow Bistro (basement) on Kings Parade (across from Kings college)9 am - 9 pm offers atmosphere, veggie food at reasonable cost, daily changing menu.

Pubs

• Cambridge certainly doesn't lack pubs. The Zebra does great pizza and has some good guest beers if you like that kind of thing. My favourites in the town are the Hogshead and Quinns (in Downing Street), and I guess I should mention my locals, The County Arms (Great food, especially the fudge cake!) and the Issac Newton (Cheap Beer, big screen for footy)
• the ship pub arbury
• Baron of Beef, henrys (expensive) Vaults on Trinity Steet.
• The Cambridge Blue, for non smokers, the Live and let Live for those who fume.
• Rat and parrot-very expensive but a mature and friendly atmosphere, lots of money in here!!
• The Anchor on Silver Street is absolutely brilliant, home made food in huge portions all for around a fiver & the new scouse manager is a force to be reckoned with as well. The beer's a bit expensive but, well, you pay for quality don't you.
• the cross keys is a very fresh faced crowd.... stick with the eagle and the regal and henry's (if u have the money) and also hogshead cos its great in there.
• Man on the Moon
• Do not go in the Liove and Let live, cliquey, po faced landlord and landlady, very depressing.
• Unfortunately, the Cambridge Arms has closed down and become the Rattle and Scum, which caters more for dance music and sports now. Does get very crowded on Saturdays.
• Portland arms, Man on the Moon. See music venues
• Mitre tavern
• A local pub where people go to drink and relax.
• The Mill. The Anchor is a total rip-off, but it does yummy chocolate fudge cake.
• Your info re the Blue Boar is VERY out of date. It changed it's name at least a couple of years ago to Ha Ha's. And it's not full of posh people, it's full of nice Cambridge town people!
• Go to the EMPRESS on Thoday St. Back street pub with a no food, no nonsense aproach. Beer's good and cheap and you won't get hounded at drinking up time like some places (The Hogshead). Nowhere else in Cambridge have I seen students (Anglia mainly) and locals all rubbing along so nicely!
• Do not hit The Regal on a saturday night if you care about keeping your looks!
• The Maypole, on Park Street. Go say Hello to Mario.
• I like the pub bit in the Bun Shop (King St). And I'll always have a soft spot for the Castle (Castle Hill). I currently favour the Zebra (Maids Causeway). Oh yes, and the Mill and the Granta, esp. in summer, even though they're crowded.
• the Cambridge Blue on gwidir street has excellent beer, but it smells of the school canteen and the food is appalling - over priced and tasteless - my mash was made with water! Now the Kingston on Kingston street is another story...
• to many to mention, Cambridge BLue does best range of bitter though on Gwydir Street and Bun Shop on King St has brilliant house red
• The Flying Pig used to be my favourite passing out spot, but I haven't been there for ages now (since I stopped working next door to it!) The Green Dragon was a good one - next to the river and opposite Stourbridge Common (also just up the road from my house strangely enough).
• A new one - The Regal - has recently been opened by Weatherspoons. It's the biggest in Europe, and is much cheaper than the other overpriced pubs around here, but has no atmosphere. It's good as a starting point before going to a club, but there aren't any clubs worth going to in the area!
• All Bar One has a friendly, relaxed atmosphere. The beers not cheap but then you get what you pay for!
• One of the highest numbers of pubs per area in the country. Where else do you get 2 pubs next door to each other in a couple of locations and many more where they are next door but one?!
• Lots of pubs in Cambridge, some of them actually pretty good! If you can avoid the haw-hawing students.
• The Salisbury Arms off Tenison Road is the best pub in town - the landlord is as miserable as sin - it's GREAT!! The food is excellent and very cheap and you get huge plate loads of chips... the beer is wonderful too and check out the Crones cider.... The juke box has a wide range of stuff and there's a HUGE TV if you're in to watching sport...
• The Queen's Head in Newton does a great pint on Adnams.
• Cambridge's best pubs are a)the Cambridge Blue on Gwydir Street - for a sedate, relaxing night out with excellent beer, no music or pub games. b)The Flying Pig by the War Memorial on Hills Road - also not the most heaving of pubs, but that's what I like. However, does have live music some nights (usually funky), pool table. Dingy lighting and candles good for ugly nights.
• The Seven Stars on Newmarket Rd is pretty good. The service is friendly, and gets friendlier the more often you go. There are sometimes pool tournaments and every Saturday night there is a live band, but be careful if the posters say that 'Charis' are going to play coz when they do the place fills with 16 year olds from the local school, Parkside, all getting pissed!
• Lots. Three Magnets: £1.25 a pint.
• I lived round the corner from the Ancient Druids and it was rubbish. They do brew their own ale, though.
• Two great pubs just out of Cambridge for anyone tired of side stepping the cliches of student life (be they Public, State or Foreign) or the invisible earnings of interested Anglophiles - The Queens Head at Newton and The Green Man in Thriplow - both just c 8 miles south of the City - buses have been seen driving passed both these fine pubs (Adnams at The Queens Head and Fine ales at The Green Man - Camera's Best Cambridgeshire Pub 1998)
• Free Press, nice, comfortable, SMOKE FREE pub.
• The Anchor, the Granta, the Bath, the Eagle are great. The Mill is the best in summertime but the drinks are better in the Anchor - you can buy your beer in the anchor and take it through past the punts to the millpond. Avoid the Blue Boar, its full of the posh wankers everyone seems so worried about. Unless they're doing 50p a pint, in which case its full of 16 year olds. The Rupert Brooke and the Red Lion in grantchester - again, got to be done - walk over the fields, get pissed then meander back. by the way the cows who live in the fields on the way to Grantchester like cold pizza.
• The Tram Depot is the best pub in Cambridge, followed by the Acient Druids, and the Hoggs Head.
• The Greyhound has entertainment every night of the week.
• There are much nicer pubs in Cambridge than the ones listed, specially if you want to avoid the Cambidge University tossers: the King Street Run and the Cambridge Arms both have wicked jukeboxes and the Run is one of the most cleverly decorated establishments you'll ever visit. They're cheaper too: in the Blue Boar you'll be charged £2.40 a pint which is just ridiculous, but then 45% of the intake of the Cambridge Colleges have mummies and daddies who can afford to pay for their kiddie's vast intake of extortionately priced booze, don't they?
• The Eagle, Free Press, Cambridge Blue, Champion of the Thames and the Live and Let Live Pubs are pretty good. The Boathouse is pretty cool. Decent selection of beers. Murphy's is my particular favorite.

Cafes and Coffee Shops

• BB's Coffee and Muffins in Grafton Centre
• Clownz in Kings Street is a nice place to chill out, full of dodgy foreigners most of the time though...
• Clowns!!(kings street) serves THE best hot choc and cakes! also starbucks in winter with their special eggnog latte(heaven in a cup!)
• Starbucks is good- but too American style...and we're Brittish, and not yet in Cambridge have i seen a Brittish coffe shop. Not being prejudice...Honest!!!
• Well I paticularly like the Starbucks down market street, next to vodafone and orange. Thats always nice as my friend works in there and freebies is the order of the day. Sometimes i paticularly like a frappucino alongside the river cheaper than cafe uno and great views of girls in punts during the summer. However, when I'm feeling poor and shopping at the Grafton centre i sometimes might pop into starbucks and get myself a espresso to give me a nice little high and stinky breathe. Though, starbucks within Borders is paticularly nice get to read the books for free and rip out a few pages for personal reference. Hey, dont worry about getting stains on them just leave it on the table and the staff are more than willing to put them back for you.
• Madal Bal. (Check out their yummy bagels!) and CB1 on Mill road
• squeeze, the waffle shop is trendy if a little pricy.
• The Nicest place to go in Cambridge for the best Chocolate milkshakes, Hot Chocolates and Cappacinos is deffinatly Clowns which is down King Street, there is a really friendly atmosphere and you can smoke and have a drink at the same time!
• The new Netbar at the newly open Forum on Jesus lane is a funky place to hang out. They even have a scalectrix coffee table!
• Clowns Cafe (King Street) - Italian food, wines, other alcoholic beverages available, small roof garden, upstairs no-smoking area (where some computers have appeared recently), comfortable atmosphere.
• NOT STARBUCKS. evil company. much better is CLOWNS down Kings ST. or that mint green coloured one on Downing St.
• Le Gros Franck, 57 Hills Rd (Next door to the Q club). Coffee for 1.20 (that includes a chocolate), and the best lunches I've tasted in Cambridge. Also serves as a restaurant at night but I've never been. Real cafe atmosphere there, as opposed to the likes of starbucks where you just get tossers spending all day in the seats as they sip their milky burnt coffee.
• The cafe in the Arts Theatre looks scarily posh, but it's not too expensive, and really nice.
• Clowns - they recognise you after about two visits and say `the usual?' Lovely.
• CAFE CASIMIR FOR THE VERY BEST COFFEE IN CAMBRIDGE!!!
• Clowns (King St) wins, no contest. Cafe Rouge (Bridge St) is good for the open fire in winter, although their coffee is merely satisfactory.
• CB1 and 2 of course
• Indigos - round the corner from the Arts Theatre. Only place in Cambridge that does bagels. Gorgeous!! Pretty cheap really, nice and cosy on 2 floors. Opens pub hours most days.
• Naida's Patisserie, the best cakes and sarnies in Camrbidge, and I should know, I used to work there!
• Woohoo! Starbucks has come to town, and with a vengeance! After my uni years with nowhere to sit and veg "Central Perk" style, Starbucks have opened a coffee shop on Market Square! They are also currently in the process of building another one at the other end of town oppostie Magdalene College, by the river (near Henry's). Waterstones has always been fantastic with their Seattle Coffee Co upstairs, and their willingness for coffee and books to be mingled with noone yelling at you (I can recommend a large hto chocolate with a double espresso *ZING!*). Eaden Lilley (a 150year old Department Store) has been bought and is being relaced by a Borders bookshop (like we don't already have 7 or 8 in such a tiny town already? NOT that i'm complaing mind!) which will also have a coffee shop inside (rumours are that it's yet another Starbucks...) (There are LOTS more)
• Clowns cafe:Kings Street.Sit down in this great little spot for a coffe ,something to eat ie toast ,sandwiches,and take in the atmosphere.
• Plenty, but they're all filled with bloody American tourists in the summer and students the rest of the time.

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Last updated: 2008-05-09