Fin Boys

Diners are spoilt for choice along Cambridge’s food-rich Mill Road, but if you’re in the mood for fish, Fin Boys is the address to know. Its purpose is clear: to buy seasonal seafood from sustainable sources, and deploy it for ever-changing menus with care, flair (often inspired by Japan) and minimal waste. There’s also chef-chat if you choose the counter seating, and plenty of people-watching from the bright window seats.

The kitchen's take on prawn toast involving fried milk bread layered generously with chopped prawns, oyster sauce and furikake (for seaweed-sesame savouriness) has a deserved fan club – although bouncy hot crumpets, loaded richly with crab cacio e pepe, are a deliciously substantial alternative (especially when paired with an Old Vines Chenin Blanc blend from South Africa's Mullineux Winery that features on the fish-friendly drinks list).

Follow, perhaps, with bluefin tuna, dry-aged on-site to perfect firmness, in a puddle of blood-orange ponzu, where the flavours surf vigorously through deep umami, citrus-sweetness and lip-tingling togarashi chilli-heat, before a spoonful of labneh calms everything down. There's also beautiful balance in a bowl of creamy sushi rice with diced poached squid, agretti and angel-hair nori, with puffed rice for texture and squid-seaweed broth as an anchor.

Among the bigger plates, line-caught Cornish monkfish might come with cauliflower purée and sea beets in midwinter, or make a summer outing alongside zucchini (from nearby Flourish Farm) with shiitake and kelp XO sauce. If you're after fishy comfort food, you might get lucky with clam risotto, a classic fish soup with garlicky rouille and plenty of Gruyère or rigatoni with a velvet-crab sauce. Finish with the enduringly popular Basque cheesecake or a simple affogato involving locally made Jack’s Gelato.