Cambridgeshire has one restaurant with two Michelin stars, one with a single star and a handful more that Michelin and the AA rate highly. Most of them are in or close to Cambridge, but some of the best cooking in the county happens in an old stone inn on the Nene at Wansford, a coaching inn on the old Great North Road and a village pub near the Essex border. This guide is for the meals you plan weeks ahead: birthdays, anniversaries, a proposal or simply a night you want to remember.
We checked every restaurant against the current Michelin Guide and AA listings plus at least one other source in November 2026, and we have only included places we could confirm are trading. Fine dining is thin outside Cambridge, so rather than pad the list we have kept it to eight, and where booking rules, allergy limits or Christmas closures could catch you out, we have said so.
Details were accurate at the time of research in November 2026. Menus, prices and opening days change often at this level, so please check each restaurant’s own website before you book.
Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire
Both of the county’s Michelin-starred kitchens sit within a mile of each other on the north side of the city centre, either side of Jesus Green and Midsummer Common. A short drive out, the villages to the east and south add a tasting-menu house with rooms and a rosetted country pub.
Midsummer House, Cambridge
Indoor activity
- Midsummer House, in a Victorian house on Midsummer Common, holds two Michelin stars in the 2026 Michelin Guide, the only two-star restaurant in Cambridgeshire
- It has held its second star since 2005 and also carries five AA rosettes, the highest grade the AA gives
- Diners choose from three set menus, called Solstice, Corpus and Trinity, and the dishes are kept as a surprise and change regularly
- The Solstice menu opens with a glass of Laurent-Perrier Champagne, or Midsummer House Grand Cuvée, the restaurant’s own alcohol-free alternative
- There is a separate alcohol-free drinks list alongside the wine list, so non-drinkers get more than a soft drink
- Michelin’s inspectors single out the desserts, naming a lychee parfait, and note the generous use of luxury ingredients
- Lunch and dinner run Wednesday to Saturday, with the last lunch booking at 1.30pm and the last dinner booking at 9pm
- The restaurant closes from 24 December 2026 to 16 January 2027, and opens for Sunday lunch on 6, 13 and 20 December 2026
- Private dining and exclusive hire of the whole house are available for larger celebrations
Address: Midsummer Common, Cambridge CB4 1HA
Website: midsummerhouse.co.uk
Phone: 01223 369299 (reservations office, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm)
How to book: Online through OpenTable from the restaurant’s website, by phone, or by email; tables are released three months ahead at 9am on the first of each month
Midsummer House has been the benchmark for cooking in this county for more than twenty years, and Michelin still describes a kitchen that keeps changing its dishes rather than resting on them. Its influence spreads further than the common: Mark Poynton, whose Fen Ditton restaurant appears below, trained here. Because the menu is a surprise, this is a meal for people who are happy to hand over control for an afternoon or an evening. Book on the morning the month’s tables are released, and join the waiting list if your date has already gone. Walk along the river from the city centre rather than drive, as there is no parking on the common itself.
Restaurant Twenty-Two, Cambridge
Indoor activity
- Chef Sam Carter and Alex Olivier have run Restaurant Twenty-Two since 2018, in half of a Victorian semi on Chesterton Road
- It holds one Michelin star in the 2026 Michelin Guide and three AA rosettes, and The Good Food Guide rates it Exceptional
- Evenings are tasting menus only: the full menu was £150 per person and the short menu, designed to take about two hours, was £115 when we checked
- A three-course set lunch at £65 runs Thursday to Saturday, and the restaurant says the full menu rises by £10 and the short menu and lunch by £5 from 1 December
- On Wednesday and Thursday evenings you can choose the full or short menu, while Friday and Saturday evenings are full menu only
- Many of the non-alcoholic drinks pairings are made in house, according to The Good Food Guide
- Vegetarian, vegan and pescatarian menus are possible if you say so when booking, but severe allergies and coeliac disease cannot be catered for
- Children under 12 and babies are not accepted
- A card is needed to secure every booking, and there is an £80 per person charge for no-shows or late cancellations
- The restaurant is closed from 20 to 29 December inclusive, and tables are released month by month, with the next releases at 1pm on Saturday 7 November and Saturday 5 December 2026
Address: 22 Chesterton Road, Cambridge CB4 3AX
Website: restaurant22.co.uk
Phone: 01223 351880
How to book: Online reservation form on the restaurant’s website, with card details; a waiting list covers full dates
Twenty-Two is a small, personal restaurant: a husband and wife team, a dining room in a family house and a set menu cooked with real precision. The Good Food Guide picks out venison tartare, a bread course with several butters and a toffee apple dessert, though the menu moves with the seasons. The short menu is the one to choose if you want the full experience on a work night without staying until midnight. The team’s more relaxed sister restaurant, Margaret’s, is next door on the same road and is covered in our restaurant guide. Walk or cycle across Jesus Green from the centre, as Chesterton Road is a busy main road.
Vanderlyle, Cambridge
Indoor activity
- A plant-led tasting menu restaurant on Mill Road, co-founded in 2019, with chef Alex Rushmer running the kitchen
- The menu contains no meat or fish and is built around vegetables and produce delivered each morning, changing with the seasons and the suppliers
- It is listed in the 2026 Michelin Guide, and The Good Food Guide describes a ten-course tasting menu
- The Seasonal Tasting Menu was £90 per person on the booking site when we checked, paid in advance when you book
- Two seats at The Pass face the open kitchen and are sold at the same price for parties of two
- Standard tables take parties of two to five people
- Wine pairings and soft drink pairings are both available
- Dinner only, Tuesday to Friday from 6pm, so it is closed at weekends and on Mondays
- New months of bookings open shortly after a monthly newsletter goes out, so sign up if you are after a particular date
Address: 38-40 Mill Road, Cambridge CB1 2AD
Website: vanderlyle.co.uk
How to book: Online through Tock (exploretock.com/vanderlyle), prepaid
Vanderlyle is the answer for anyone who has sat through a tasting menu picking around the meat courses. Everything here is designed around vegetables from the start, and Michelin’s inspectors name roasted wild mushrooms with Roscoff onion and bordelaise sauce as an example of the cooking. The room is relaxed, with a big open kitchen as the centrepiece, and the counter seats at The Pass are the ones to ask for if you like watching chefs work. Because it only opens on weekday evenings, it suits a midweek birthday better than a Saturday night. Mill Road is lined with independent restaurants, cafés and shops, so there is plenty nearby for a drink before or after.
Ancient Shepherds by Mark Poynton, Fen Ditton
Indoor activity
- A tasting-menu restaurant with rooms in a Grade II listed, timber-framed former village pub on Fen Ditton High Street, on the north east edge of Cambridge
- Chef Mark Poynton trained under Daniel Clifford at Midsummer House and opened Alimentum in Cambridge in 2009 before running this site as MJP at The Shepherds
- It reopened under its new name in July 2025 after a refurbishment, and it is listed in the 2026 Michelin Guide
- The current sample menus are three courses at £40, five at £60 and seven at £85 per person, with wine flights at £30, £50 and £70
- The whole table has to choose the same menu with the same number of courses
- Sunday lunch is two courses for £37 or three for £45, served from noon to 6pm
- Lunch and dinner run Thursday to Saturday, and the restaurant is closed Monday to Wednesday
- There are five bedrooms, two deluxe and three standard, booked by email
- Vegetarian and pescatarian diets are possible if requested at booking, but coeliac disease and severe allergies cannot be catered for
- Children are welcome, but there is no children’s menu
Address: 5 High Street, Fen Ditton, Cambridge CB5 8ST
Website: ancientshepherds.com
Phone: 01223 293280
How to book: Online through the restaurant’s booking page; rooms by email to info@ancientshepherds.com
The Ancient Shepherds is the gentlest way into Michelin-listed tasting menus in the county, because the three-course option lets you try the kitchen without committing to a long evening. Poynton writes the menus with his head chef, and produce comes from the kitchen garden and suppliers he has used for years. Book a room and you can make a night of the seven courses with the wine flight without anyone having to drive. Fen Ditton is a short taxi ride from Cambridge station, and the village is close to the Cam if you want a walk before lunch.
The Three Hills, Bartlow
Indoor and outdoor
- A listed village pub with rooms in Bartlow, in the far south east corner of the county close to the Essex border
- It has held two AA rosettes every year since reopening in 2015 after a rebuild, and it is also listed in the Michelin Guide and The Good Food Guide, according to The Morning Advertiser in November 2025
- The kitchen cooks a seasonal British menu, and the seafood is singled out as a highlight
- The menu mixes pub classics with more refined restaurant dishes, so one person can have steak and another something more ambitious
- Food is served Wednesday to Saturday at lunch and dinner and on Sunday from noon to 3pm, with no service on Mondays or Tuesdays
- There are six en suite rooms and a two-bedroom flat for anyone who wants to stay over
- The landscaped garden has a fairy-lit canopy and a sun terrace for summer evenings
- The pub is dog friendly
- It was named Best Country Pub at the 2022 Great British Pub Awards and was a finalist for Best Pub in Cambridgeshire at the 2026 National Pub and Bar Awards
Address: Dean Road, Bartlow, Cambridge CB21 4PW
Website: thethreehills.co.uk
Phone: 01223 890500
How to book: Online through the pub’s website for tables; rooms through the booking link on the same site
The Three Hills is here because it does something the city restaurants cannot: a properly special meal in a country pub where nobody minds muddy boots or a dog under the table. The rosettes reflect careful cooking rather than a tasting menu, and that suits a family celebration with mixed tastes. Bartlow is a quiet village on the Essex border, and the Bartlow Hills, a group of Roman burial mounds, are a short walk away. Stay in one of the rooms if you want to have the wine list without the drive home. In December there is a Christmas menu and a wreath workshop on Saturday 5 December 2026.
Huntingdonshire and the Great Ouse
The current Michelin Guide lists nothing around Huntingdon, St Ives or St Neots, so the special-occasion meals here come from rosetted inns rather than tasting-menu kitchens. Both of our picks are within easy reach of the A1 and Huntingdon.
The Bell Inn, Stilton
Indoor activity
- A historic coaching inn on the old Great North Road in Stilton, owned by The Coaching Inn Group since 2019
- The restaurant holds two AA rosettes, an award it has kept since 2016
- Diners can eat in the village bar and brasserie or in the beamed first-floor restaurant
- The kitchen cooks modern British food using local and seasonal produce
- The inn reopened after a refurbishment of its public rooms and function suites, celebrated with a village evening on 3 December 2025
- The Bell says it rose to fame in the 1700s for Stilton cheese, which travellers on the coaching road carried south and named after the village
- There are 23 bedrooms, and dogs can stay for £20 per room per night, up to two dogs
- Food is served from 7.30am to 9pm, so breakfast, lunch and dinner are all covered
- December 2026 events include Carols in the Courtyard on 11 December, A Three Course Christmas Carol dinner on 18 December and a New Year’s Eve evening
Address: Great North Road, Stilton, Peterborough PE7 3RA
Website: thebellstilton.co.uk
Phone: 01733 241066
How to book: Online with the Book a Table button on the website or by phone; Christmas bookings go through central reservations on 01858 438300
The Bell is the place to take someone who likes their celebrations with a bit of history attached. Stilton cheese never came from Stilton, but it was sold here to travellers on the Great North Road, and the inn makes much of that story. The first-floor restaurant is the room to book for an anniversary dinner, while the brasserie downstairs is easier for a relaxed lunch. It is a short hop off the A1(M), which makes it a sensible meeting point for friends coming from both north and south. Ask about the cheese when you book, as it would be odd to leave without trying some.
The Crown Inn, Broughton
Indoor and outdoor
- An early 19th-century village pub opposite the church in Broughton, a small village near Huntingdon, with a restaurant and a separate area for drinkers
- It has held one AA rosette since November 2024
- The menu runs to an à la carte, pub classics, Sunday lunch and a children’s menu
- Dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan and allium-free versions of dishes are offered, which is rare and useful for anyone avoiding onion and garlic
- A Game Night on 20 November 2026 costs £55 a head, with matched wines for £21.95 for three courses and game from Fenland Rural Meats
- Food is served Tuesday to Saturday from noon to 1.45pm and 6pm to 8.45pm, and Sunday from noon to 2.45pm, and the pub is closed on Mondays
- Dogs are welcome in the bar, and there is a large garden
- A beer festival with about 30 cask ales runs in a marquee in the garden over the late May bank holiday weekend
- Booking is recommended for food, especially at weekends
Address: Bridge Road, Broughton, Huntingdon PE28 3AY
Website: thecrowninnrestaurant.co.uk
Phone: 01487 824428
How to book: By phone, by email to info@thecrowninnrestaurant.co.uk, or by message on the pub’s social media
The Crown is not a tasting-menu restaurant, and it does not pretend to be. It is a well-run village pub with a rosette, a thoughtful wine list and themed dinners such as the November game night, which is about as close to a chef’s menu as Huntingdonshire gets. Broughton is a quiet spot, and the pub sits right by the church, so on a summer evening the garden is the place to be. It is a good choice for a birthday where you want food worth the trip without the formality or the bill of a Cambridge dining room. The allium-free menu makes it one of the few places where people who cannot eat onion or garlic get a proper choice.
Ely, the Fens and Peterborough
Ely and the Fen market towns have good restaurants, which we cover in our restaurant guide, but none of them currently holds a Michelin listing or more than one AA rosette that we could confirm. The serious cooking in the north of the county is on the Nene just west of Peterborough, where an old stone coaching inn at Wansford houses a kitchen with three AA rosettes.
Prévost at Haycock Manor, Wansford
Indoor activity
- The fine dining restaurant inside the Haycock Manor Hotel at Wansford, beside the A1 west of Peterborough
- It holds three AA rosettes and is listed in the 2026 Michelin Guide
- The hotel offers two tasting menus, of five and eight courses, with wine pairings, and has advertised an English wine flight
- The main dining room is a converted orangery with French windows over the gardens
- The restaurant began on Priestgate in Peterborough city centre and later moved into the Haycock
- The kitchen has changed head chef more than once in recent years, and Harden’s 2026 survey still rated the food very good
- The Haycock Kitchen brasserie in the older part of the hotel is the more relaxed option and serves every day
Address: Haycock Manor Hotel, London Road, Wansford, Peterborough PE8 6JA
Website: haycock.co.uk/prevost-haycock
How to book: Online through the booking link on the hotel’s website
Prévost is the most complete fine dining night out north of Cambridge, because you can eat a long tasting menu and then go upstairs to bed. The Good Food Guide describes an orangery dining room with soft lighting, a birdcage theme and an olive tree hung with fairy lights, which makes it a good room for an anniversary. Wansford is a pretty stone village on the Nene, and the Nene Valley Railway runs steam trains from Wansford station on selected days if you want to add something to a weekend stay. Our mini breaks guide covers the hotel in more detail. Ask about the current tasting menus when you book, as the kitchen team has changed recently.
Seasonal Highlights
Spring: The Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland 2026 was revealed in Dublin in February 2026, and new star news usually breaks early in the year. The late May bank holiday brings the Crown at Broughton’s garden beer festival.
Summer: The gardens at the Three Hills in Bartlow and the Crown at Broughton come into their own for long evening meals, and the kitchen garden at the Ancient Shepherds feeds directly into its tasting menus.
Autumn: The Crown at Broughton holds its Game Night on 20 November 2026, with game from Fenland Rural Meats, and the Christmas menus at the Three Hills and the Bell at Stilton open for booking through November.
Winter: Midsummer House opens for Sunday lunch on 6, 13 and 20 December 2026 before closing from 24 December to 16 January 2027. The Three Hills holds a wreath workshop on 5 December, the Bell at Stilton has Carols in the Courtyard on 11 December, and Restaurant Twenty-Two is closed from 20 to 29 December.
A Note From Inside Cambridge
Eight restaurants may look like a short list, but we would rather send you to a place that earns the bill than fill a guide with somewhere that only sounds grand. Cambridgeshire punches above its size at the top end, and the pleasure of this list is that two of the best meals in the county are in villages most visitors drive straight past.
Fine dining changes faster than most of what we write about, with chefs moving, menus repricing and new places opening. If you have eaten somewhere recently that belongs here, or something in this guide has changed, please let us know and we will update it.
Before You Go
- Book early: Midsummer House releases tables three months ahead at 9am on the first of each month, Restaurant Twenty-Two releases each month at 1pm on a Saturday, and Vanderlyle sends a newsletter before each release
- Expect to give card details or pay in advance; Restaurant Twenty-Two charges £80 per person for late cancellations and Vanderlyle is prepaid
- Raise allergies and dietary needs when you book, not on arrival, as Restaurant Twenty-Two and the Ancient Shepherds cannot cater for coeliac disease or severe allergies
- Check the children’s policy: Restaurant Twenty-Two does not take under 12s, while the Ancient Shepherds welcomes children but has no children’s menu
- Many of these kitchens are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, and Vanderlyle only opens Tuesday to Friday evenings, so plan midweek celebrations carefully
- Christmas closures are long at the top end: Midsummer House shuts from 24 December 2026 to 16 January 2027 and Restaurant Twenty-Two from 20 to 29 December
- Prices at this level change often, and Restaurant Twenty-Two’s menus rise from 1 December, so confirm the current price when you book
- If you want to drink without driving, the Ancient Shepherds, the Three Hills, the Bell at Stilton and the Haycock all have rooms
- There is no parking on Midsummer Common, so walk, cycle or take a taxi to Midsummer House
