Restaurant reviews are HANDS DOWN my favourite things to write. I did loads of them for the Cambridge News and couldn’t pick one, so here are four. Bon appetit.
Byron, Cambridge
The day after I’d been to posh burger restaurant Byron for the first time, I had a slightly surreal conversation with a colleague.
“Did you have the courgette fries? Tell me you had the courgette fries!” she demanded, before rolling her eyes and making noises that weren’t really appropriate for an office setting. “Oh God,” she moaned, “They’re GORGEOUS!”
I hadn’t had the courgette fries.
That was two years ago, but I’d never forgotten it. Well you wouldn’t, would you? So when my son requested a burger for his 13th birthday treat a couple of Saturdays ago (and balked at my Drive-thru suggestion), I rang the Bridge Street restaurant to book. A terribly polite gentleman told me that they don’t take bookings at weekends, “but the queue’s quite small at the moment.”
The queue was still there when the four of us arrived half an hour later (that’s a good sign, right?), but it kept moving along and, within 10 minutes, we were snuggling up in a booth and taking it all in.
Byron’s a groovy place – all exposed brickwork, retro wallpaper and dangly lightbulbs – with staff buzzing around in black T-shirts, each emblazoned with a Byronesque word (as in the burgers, not the Romantic poet): ‘Byron’, ‘Classic’, ‘Proper’. We couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for the poor bloke with ‘Cheese’.
But my goodness, they were kept on their toes. The place was absolutely heaving with all manner of folk, from weary shoppers to early-evening daters. And kids. Lots of kids. Byron is clearly ‘family-friendly’, as a box of crayons had been handed to our littlest when we came in (and I had a good old cluck over a 2-week-old baby behind us).
Our order was taken almost straight away, starting with drinks: a soft and warm house red for us and an Oreo Cookie milkshake for birthday boy James. “Oh my God, that’s awesome,” he said, rolling his eyes and making slightly inappropriate noises for someone just hours into his teens. I told him not to drink it all in one go or he’d have no room for his burger, so he kept sneaking slurps when he thought I wasn’t looking.
A jug of ice-and-lemon water arrived without us even asking (full marks, Byron), quickly followed by our food: a chilli burger for Stephen, chicken burger for James, kids’ beefburger for Poppy and a Portobello-and-goats-cheese veggie burger for me.
Ah, so this explains the queue. The silence that fell over the table for a good eight minutes was a sign of how tasty they were: soft, sweetish buns with perfectly-cooked meat (they tell me), while my creamy goats cheese and fat old fungi definitely hit the spot. I was slightly disappointed that there was no salad garnish, mind you - just a lengthwise wedge of gherkin – but there was enough greenery in the bun to keep me happy.
And the fries? They all went French. I went courgette.
Now maybe they’ve changed the recipe, but I’m afraid I didn’t roll either of my eyes, let alone both, or emit any sexy noises. Yes, they were pleasant enough, but only really tasted of – well, battered nothingness, and quite greasy battered nothingness at that. Courgettes aren’t exactly famous for their flavour, are they? Why not batter a parsnip? Now that might make me grunt attractively.
The plates were quickly cleared (Stephen was still finishing off Poppy’s leftovers), but that queue was still there, so the staff politely but fairly pressingly hurried us along: when Poppy couldn’t decide between her set puds (ice-cream or brownie) the waiter offered to pop a brownie in a doggy bag for her, and looked slightly put out when I said we’d all be having dessert.
I had the cheesecake while the gents had brownies and Poppy (finally) settled on ice-cream. All were perfectly tasty, but nothing to get inappropriately excited about. And then, with the eyes from the queue boring into us, we left to let someone else enjoy a bit of Byron yumminess.
Our verdict, then, is great food and great atmosphere - if not the kind of place you can relax and linger on a Saturday night.
But if courgette chips are your bag, you know exactly where to come. Ooooh! Aaaaah! YESSSS!
Butch Annie’s, Cambridge
“I can’t wait to meet her,” I whisper as we totter down the steps of Butch Annie’s, the new restaurant that’s replaced Carrington’s in the middle of Cambridge.
I’m betting Butch Annie is a middle-aged harridan-with-a-heart, probably Texan, who’s always dreamed of opening her own burger joint. I’m betting she’ll be behind the bar, all big boobs and beefy tattooed forearms, wiping the counter as she listens to her customers’ problems (standard reply: “Darlin’, he just ain’t worth it”).
But Annie doesn’t seem to be here this quiet Sunday night. Instead we’re shown to our booth by very smiley young man (he does have tattooed forearms, but they’re not remotely beefy).
Now it’s years since I’ve been to Carrington’s, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t have ‘Never Mind the Bollox’ spray-painted across two walls. In fact the basement restaurant is a bit of a strange mix on the décor front: look out of your right eye and you’ll see a wood-panelled, Farrow and Ball-painted bar, complete with evenly spaced leather barstools and twinkly fairly lights. Look out of your left eye and it’s all graffiti-splashed brick, like an 80s squat.
But somehow it works. It’s ‘cool’ enough to make me feel every single one of my 43 years. And I’m definitely raising the average age in here: the other customers seem to be exclusively studenty types, and the staff (clad in black shirts and stripy braces) are irritatingly youthful and good-looking too. Where’s Butch Annie when you need her?
I’m starting to smell a rat. This place looks like a chain. The branding is slick, the uniforms are chic, the menu wording screams ‘I’ve been written by a marketing consultant’ - yet the website suggests it’s the only one. The waitress confirms my suspicions: there IS no Butch Annie! Turns out it’s owned by a couple of restaurateurs from London. Bah.
I drown my sorrows in my drink, which arrives super-fast. It’s all about craft beers here, so Stephen has a Curious Brew Lager (made with Champagne yeast, which he swears he can taste) and my Grey Heron cider packs a powerful appley punch. James, 13, barely looks up from his thick shake (caramel, one of many, many flavours on offer) but Poppy, 5, doesn’t like her lemonade: it’s the posh cloudy type. ‘It tastes like sweets’ she pouts. Apparently this isn’t a good thing.
As three of us drink and one of us pouts, we watch small packages being delivered to the tables around us – ah, so this explains the total absence of cutlery – and begin to salivate. Served in pert brioche buns, burgers are quite literally the only food the menu here (five options are beef, while two come from Iberian black pigs, and all meaty patties can be replaced with their ‘secret recipe’ veggie-burger). Ours arrive soon afterwards, each burger wrapped in waxy blue paper, the fries in enamel mugs.
Having run the Cambridge Half Marathon just hours earlier, Stephen’s Wild-eyed Coyote with hot chilli, spiced yoghurt and black bean topping (£8.50) barely touches the sides. He swallows it with an Owp! like the Tiger Who Came To Tea, but confirms that it’s “really tasty, and I like the beans.” James eats his Classic Butch (£6.90) almost as fast, and gives it a wide-eyed and resounding thumbs up. “Really, really good,” he mumbles, cheeks bulging.
I’ve gone for the Ooh la la! (£7.90). Fat and fresh and packed with vegetation, it’s an absolute delight. If I’m being picky there’s slightly too much garlic mayo, but I’m just relieved that, unlike most veggie burgers, it isn’t just stuffed with unidentifiable beans. Tonight I shall be a garlicky bedfellow rather than a guffy one.
There’s no kids menu; their one option is a half-size plain burger, a drink, and fries for the price of their basic adult burger (a not insignificant £6.90). Poppy’s arrives without her fries (but we’ll let them off, it’s early days) and the waitress brings a small bag with colouring stuff when she’s halfway through eating it: I’m guessing they’re not really geared up for kids, although I did spot a couple of high chairs leaning against the wall.
The fries (£2.90) are great – skin-on and super-salty – but I’m less convinced by the onion popcorn cooked in chickpea and beer batter (£2.90). I was expecting little balls (well you would, it’s ‘popcorn’), rather than the amorphous blobs that arrive, but the accompanying yoghurt dip is unusual and excellent.
The waitress brings us lemony wipes for our fingers (no cutlery, remember?) and I ask if they do desserts. “Yes, ice-cream.” Just ice-cream? “Just ice-cream.” She brings us a list, and they do sound good: ‘100 per cent natural, using local fruit’ (er, London owners, Norfolk isn’t THAT local. Just saying). Poppy and I have a cone (£2.90) each: my salted caramel is divine, and Poppy’s double choc chip disappears very fast, although it does feel rather odd to be eating an ice-cream cone in a restaurant (no cutlery, remember?).
We decide that we very much like Butch Annie’s. It’s early days, but the place feels cool, the food’s very good, if a little pricey (but hey, we’re in the middle of town), and it’s relaxing: we don’t feel remotely rushed, which is seldom the case in similar Cambridge restaurants.
Will we be back? Yes we will. And if Butch Annie was a real person, I’d give her a pat on her broad, sunburned, tattooed back.
Giraffe, Cambridge
There are certain words I always avoid in restaurant reviews. 'Plumped for'. Amateurish. 'Tucked into'. Urgh. 'Delicious'. Lazy. 'Moist'. Just… horrible. But my least favourite by a country mile is 'A warm welcome awaited us', which sounds like something Alan Partridge would write on a particularly cheesy day.
And yet, as a biting wind blows us into Christ’s Lane and through the glass doors of Giraffe, the welcome awaiting us is so warm it’s positively letting off steam.
A chap, who we soon learn is called Tom, beckons us in with windmilling arms before practically clutching us to his armpits. “Come in! Come in out of the cold, guys!” he exclaims, beaming with pleasure. Crikey. Have I forgotten to take off my 'I'm reviewing this for the Cambridge News' T-shirt?
No. As more customers are blown through the door, it becomes clear that this is how Tom greets everybody. Like the longest of long-lost friends. Like friends who’ve trekked across the Sahara to get here, rather than across Christ’s Pieces.
We might as well have walked into a corporate training video for Giraffe's front-of-house staff. Tom, who says “guys” after every sentence, presents the menus with a flourish, learns the kids’ names, does a couple of gags, talks us through his favourite dishes, and generally makes us feel like the most important people in the room - nay, the city. “Is there anything else I can get for you guys?” he asks, hands clasped. “More enthusiasm?” I quip. He roars with laughter. Ah, someone who laughs at my jokes: you, my friend, are heading for five-out-of-five stars for service.
We're starving, so we skip starters and head straight for the mains. Stephen’s tempted by the Kiev chicken schnitzel, but only because he likes the name: instead he has the piri-piri grilled half chicken, a big old bird basted with chili, thyme and garlic, and served with creamy coleslaw and skin-on fries (£11.95). Fiery and flavoursome, he confirms it’s very good, and knocks the feathers off a certain other piri-piri poultry place.
James, who’s 13, has only recently stopped having the kids’ menus - a right pain in the purse, frankly - and dives into his 21-day aged grilled sirloin steak (£15.95) with much rolling and closing of eyes. And, when he stops munching long enough to speak, he describes it as succulent and m… m…. Nope, sorry, can’t do it.
‘Adult’ though he now is, James still doesn’t like salad, so I eat his accompanying leaves. Crisp and fresh with an orangey tang, they’re far too good for a garnish, and I remember why I usually always have the (excellent, inventive) salads when I come to Giraffe. Instead this time I’ve chosen miso and lime-grilled salmon with wasabi fried rice and teriyaki greens (£13.95). It looks fabulous – all gleaming and steaming – and the flavours work brilliantly together, but the fish is a touch dry. Note to self: SALAD.
Poppy, who’s 5, fails to eat her kid’s burger (£4.95 including a drink), but that’s no reflection of the quality – more a reflection of her pickiness, and I wonder for the umpteenth time why I don’t just order her a bowl of chips and face the frowns of the waiter. Not that Tom would’ve frowned. I don’t think Tom knows how to frown.
In between courses he invites Poppy to make a giraffe noise, and she obligingly does a kind of strangled gurgle. Tom then performs a Redcoat-style medley of all the different giraffe sounds kids have made for him until, like an utter killjoy, I point out that because giraffes don’t have vocal chords they can’t actually make any noises. “What about when they fart?” asks James. Tom laughs so hard I fear he might collapse. “Guys!” he splutters.
Our puddings are fine, but not worth raving about. My mango sorbet with a ‘fruit salad’ – a couple of slices of banana and strawberry – is rather measly for £3.95, and Stephen and James share a Rocky Road Sundae (£5.95), which they enjoy, but say could’ve have done with a little more rock and a little less road. Having said that, Poppy practically licks the bowl of her chocolate brownie and vanilla ice-cream (£2.60). OK, she DOES lick the bowl. But by this point we no longer mind, slightly sozzled as we are from the bottle of house red which, it turns out, is half price all night tonight: at not much more than seven quid, it’s a veritable bargain.
We’re regulars at Giraffe, as it’s Poppy’s absolute favourite (hats off to the marketing genius who came up with their plastic giraffe drinks stirrers that don’t stand up and must cost about 2p to produce, plus the promise of a bright orange helium balloon when it’s time to go home). But even so, we’ve never had service like this. Cut Tom open and he’d have ‘Here to Help!’ stamped through him, like a stick of rock.
You want a warm welcome? If Tom’s working a shift at Giraffe, you’ve definitely come to the right place. Guys.
Jamie’s Italian, Cambridge
Ah, that Jamie Oliver’s a lovely boy, isn’t he? What with his cheeky chappy ways, his adorably-named children, his multi-million pound fortune... Sadly, though, the young roister-doister wasn’t cooking at his eponymous restaurant on Monday night. We knew it as soon as we arrived, because his Vespa wasn’t parked outside. I tried to hide my disappointment. Maybe Monday’s his night off.
I’d chosen Jamie’s Italian for my ‘day-after-my-birthday’ dinner, partly because I’d only ever been for lunch (excellent both times) and partly because Stephen hadn’t seen it since it was the Tourist Information Centre.
“That’s where the information desks were,” he said, pointing to an open kitchen adorned by huge slabs of dangling cured meat. We, for the record, were sitting where the bemused tourists used to amble around, mouths hanging open in awe of this beautiful, beautiful building.
If you’ve never been in, you absolutely must. It’s a vast colosseum of a room, with ornate floor-to-ceiling pillars topped by a lofty, light-filled dome. This makes it fairly noisy, of course, but when you’re eating in a miniature St Paul’s Cathedral, you can’t be surprised if it’s a bit, well, clattery.
Stephen began with baked chestnut mushrooms with smoked mozzarella, thyme and crispy music bread. The waiter offered me a side plate; I politely refused, then ate half of it anyway. It was good – very good, especially the smoky mozzarella, which tasted like eating cheese while simultaneously puffing on a cigar. Don’t try that at home.
The only slight disappointment was that the music bread (sorry, no idea) was welded to the bowl – but maybe that was intentional. Jamie wasn’t there to ask, was he?
I couldn’t decide between two fishy specials, so the waiter suggested the whole seabass. Whole as in with the head still on, complete with creepy staring eyes? Yes, Madam, but we’d be happy to decapitate it for you. Excellent, thank you.
It was a great choice. My headless friend was plump, firm and fresh, and resting on a bed of spicy tomato fregola – a Sardinian pasta, similar to Israeli couscous (thanks, Wikipedia) - which exploded in my mouth like grown-up popping candy. A primavera side salad was suitably crunchy and tasty too.
Stephen had the Honeycomb Cannelloni Trio, stuffed in turn with aubergine and sundried tomato, pumpkin, and ricotta and spinach. How was it? ‘Nice’. You’ll have to do better than that. ‘Aromatic?’ Perfect. He also enjoyed his side of Funky Chips. Posh Chips – with truffle oil – were also on offer, but he chose the former because of the name. Pukka, eh, Jamie? Pukka!
But the puds were the best bit. Stephen had the Epic (epic!) Homemade Brownie with – well, lots of fudgy and caramelly sounding things that’ll eat into my word count. Let’s just say he loved it. But not as much as I loved my Amalfi Lemon Meringue Cheesecake, a quivering slice of gorgeousness the like of which I’ve never tasted. It was seriously sublime: I even ate the sliver of baked lemon from the top, which was almost certainly only there for decoration.
This was all washed down by our bottle of house red, which arrived in a carafe. This seemed a bit odd (we had visions of some poor bloke squeezing a winebox round the back) – as everyone around us had bottles. Ah well, maybe everyone around us had ordered fancier wine.
The service was a little on the slow side, but we’ll forgive them a) because the waiters were charming and b) because it was absolutely buzzing, even on a Monday night. And now I know why: not only is the food excellent, but it’s really, really reasonably priced. A whole seabass for £12.95! You’d be pushed to get frozen scampi and chips for less in certain Cambridge pubs.
Great atmosphere, tasty food and a non-shocking final bill? This place was definitely worthy of a birthday(ish) dinner. Even if Jamie didn’t cook it.
(c) Cambridge News