Restaurant Twenty-Two
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
Sometimes it is through the most inconspicuous doors in the most unlikely locations that you find to the most attention-deserving food. So it is at number 22 Chesterton Road, one discreet half of a Victorian semi on a residential street by the river Cam. You can buy a carpet on this road, sip a pint, get your hair done, but the draw for a food-lover lies behind the classy dark-blue door, with its polished brass letterbox. Chef-owner Sam Carter is in the kitchen. His partner Alex Olivier guides a relaxed, knowledgeable front-of-house team. Together they run an exceptional restaurant. Snacks might range from an immaculate tartlet of smoked chalk stream trout and horseradish mousse, topped with luminous, briny roe to puffy gougères filled with an airy purée of Spenwood ewe's milk cheese, finished with toasted pumpkin seeds and truffled honey. Embark on a full seven-course tasting menu with its flight of paired wines if you can – not least because it will allow you to engage fully with brilliant sommelier Alfie Scott. If time presses, a three-course springtime lunch could include new season's asparagus, a single spear so perfect it should be painted, with dots of black garlic purée, pretty petals and peppery young nasturtium leaves. Next to it, fragile brik pastry holds Parmesan mousse, grated cured egg yolk and – lest you should question the glorious pairing that is asparagus and Parmesan – a generous shower of more grated cheese. There’s a wash of saline brightness in a dish of Gigha halibut. The mild flavour of the fish is elevated by pieces of 'salty fingers' (a relative of samphire), a sprinkling of nori seaweed, and a perfect spoonful of N25 caviar. Flavour-layers continue, umami delivered via a deeply savoury broth, acidity from little lemon segments. On paper, chicken breast may not be the most glamorous of ingredients, but this Yorkshire bird was fed on herbs and cooked to tenderness, then served with a glorious cream-based sauce and generous flurries of black Périgord truffle, to become unquestionably luxurious. Chocolate mousse with a thumpingly delicious miso caramel at its heart, freshening buttermilk and thyme sorbet, and jauntily balanced tuile, ends the meal magnificently. The team here is at full-tilt; the food is in equal parts delicious and elegant, the hospitality gracious. It is not to be missed.
Dining Information:
Private dining room, Credit card required
22 Chesterton Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB4 3AX
01223 351880
