Restaurant Twenty-Two

Restaurant Twenty-Two opened as a small bistro in 1982; the current incarnation — a tightly focused tasting-menu kitchen under chef-owner Sam Carter — arrived in 2017 and was awarded its Michelin star in 2022. The restaurant occupies a lovingly restored Victorian townhouse at the corner of Chesterton Road and the lane running down to Jesus Lock and the River Cam, with Jesus Green on the opposite side of the water.

Carter's cooking is ingredient-led modern British. The tasting menu runs nine courses. A chawanmushi with native Scottish langoustine and a dashi of Cambridge-grown beetroot is one of the menu's most photographed openers. A slow-cured sea bass with buttermilk, dulse and cucumber is the summer centrepiece. The signature main — a 45-day dry-aged Dexter beef rib with bone-marrow butter and a red-wine-and-shallot reduction — has appeared consistently across the last three seasons.

The wine list leans heavily on English sparkling producers (Nyetimber, Hattingley Valley, Gusbourne's library vintages) alongside a strong Burgundy spine and a curated Italian section. The pairing flight is generous — eight glasses over the nine courses. The cellar runs fewer than four hundred bins, but depth within listed producers (Leflaive, Rousseau, Ente) is genuine.

The dining room is candlelit, intimate (thirty-two covers), and seats all parties of two on a single wall looking into the open kitchen. In summer, the private terrace behind the house is a small-garden set-up overlooking Jesus Green — one of the most atmospheric al-fresco dining settings in the city.

Twenty-Two is Cambridge's proposal restaurant — small, candlelit, Michelin-starred and priced below the city's two-star default. The Victorian townhouse backing onto Jesus Green and the River Cam provides a location that walks (quite literally) into the city's most photogenic green space afterwards.