The Open Guide to Cambridge - Differences between Version 15 and Version 14 of Alimentum

Fine dining restaurant on Hills Road near the station, opened July 2007.

They also have a reasonably-sized cocktail bar at the front, where you can wait for your friends to arrive, or just go for cocktails (you don't need to have dinner). The cocktail bar is open until 12:30am Mon–Wed and 1am Thu–Sat (they're not open at all on Sunday evenings, restaurant or bar).

Kake, Karen, Richard, and Tom visited on a Tuesday evening; we'd booked a table for 7:30pm but we probably didn't need to as the place was fairly empty when we arrived (though it did fill up later). We were seated in one of the little booth-like things towards the back; comfortable black leather banquette, lots of room, relative privacy, rather nice.

We started with a round of cocktails; two Brambles, a Cosmopolitan, and, um, whatever Richard had. £7 each.

The menu, which I believe will change regularly, was quite nicely varied (although vegetarians only have one choice per course). Handily for the indecisive, each course has six options — sadly, dice are not provided.

Kake was particularly torn by the starters (all priced between £7 and £13), and would have liked to try them all. The eventual winner was the ravioli of chicken with girolles and Iberico ham (photo) (£9); the girolles and sauce were particularly good, and worked well with the fairly neutral-tasting ravioli filling. Richard and Karen also chose the ravioli, while Tom went for the smoked eel with ratte potatoes, artichoke, and summer truffle (£10); he seemed to like it, and he let us all try the very nice little cubes of white balsamic vinegar jelly that came with it.

We managed a bit more diversity with the main courses (all between £14 and £21); Tom went for the rump of lamb with confit of shoulder moussaka and lambs' sweetbreads (£17), while Richard and Karen both chose the bavette of beef with gratin dauphinoise, braised cabbage, and shallot (photo) (£16). Kake chose the sea bass with cannelloni of crab, fennel puree, and shellfish cappuccino (photo) (£17); the sea bass was cooked just right, the cannelloni were not heavy at all, and the shellfish cappuccino (a lovely light foamy sauce) and fennel pureé worked well with the rest of the dish.

Comments on the desserts (all priced between £6 and £8) will have to come from those members of the party who actually had them. Karen had the peach melba and almond ice cream dessert. This was very nice - the almond ice cream stopped it being sickeningly sweet and the pink praline gave it a bit of crunch.

A photo of the full menu is here. We paid £55/head in total, for four cocktails, four starters, four mains, three desserts, two bottles of wine (Richard, which one?) and the automatically-added 12.5% service charge.

Overall, we really enjoyed ourselves. The food, as mentioned above, was good; better than some similar places in London. We could have done without the piped music, but it wasn't annoyingly loud. Service was a good mix of friendly and informal, and we felt neither abandoned nor hassled. Kake, at least, plans to return — and this involves a journey from London, which should serve as some kind of recommendation!

See also:

• eGullet thread
• Local Secrets review
• Kake's photoset on Flickr
• Press release on Local Secrets

Last visited by Kake, Karen, Richard, and Tom, 7 August 2007. Opening hours taken from the Alimentum website, August 2007.