The food historian on a “brilliant” teashop and chocolate shop in Ely, a knockout Michelin-starred restaurant in Cambridge and her favourite local country pubs
EATING OUT
Peacock Tearoom
65 Waterside, Ely CB7 4AU; 01353 661100, www.peacockstearoom.co.uk
“We have a brilliant teashop in Ely – it has 160 varieties of tea and is just the most delightful place ever.” – Annie
Alimentum
152-154 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8PB; 01223 413000, www.restaurantalimentum.co.uk
“The last time we went to Alimentum, which has a Michelin star, it was a knockout. There’s a real sense of humour in the food.”
Fitzbillies
51-52 Trumpington St, Cambridge CB2 1RG; 01223 352500, www.fitzbillies.com
“This café run by Tim Hayward is really good fun. The Chelsea buns are really good. And he is very good at enabling people: there’s fabulous ice cream company in Cambridge now called Jack’s Gelato whose owner used to work for Tim.”
Steak & Honour
Various locations, Cambridge; www.steakandhonour.co.uk
“There’s now a street-food scene in Cambridge and it’s been spearheaded by the Steak & Honour van. I’m not really into this dirty burgers thing but I tell you what, the Steak & Honour burger is, yeah, you just want to bury your face in it. They have two vans now and a residency at Hot Numbers, a really lovely cafe in Cambridge. You can go along and listen to jazz and eat a Steak & Honour burger – and have some Jack’s Gelato as well, so that’s kind of your evening sorted.”
The White Pheasant
21 Market Street, Fordham, Ely, Cambridgeshire CB7 5LQ; 01638 720414, www.whitepheasant.com
“This pub changed ownership recently and it’s really good now. You can have steak and chips but they also do a tasting menu – we went there for a game evening which was brilliant, and they do great beer. There are lots of interesting country pubs around here – The Prince Albert and The Hare Arms are really good too.”
Market Bistro
11 Saturday Market Place, King’s Lynn, Norfolk PE30 5DQ; 01553 771483, www.marketbistro.co.uk
“If you get up that far, the Market Bistro is top-notch. King’s Lynn is quite a poor town but there’s always been one good restaurant because the hinterland is quite rich. Now there are three or four places. The Market Bistro is run by a husband-and-wife couple and they started doing interesting food – you can almost see them educating the King’s Lynn population at the same time. They do all the buzzwords: it’s local, sustainable, home-cooked, blah blah blah, but the food is just really good with interesting touches and twists. But they’re not fancy – the market there would not stand for funky foams or Kilner jars that pop open with things in.”
BUYING IN
Ely General Market
Market Place. Ely CB7 4NT (every Thursday)
“The Thursday market in Ely is excellent: there’s a very good fishmongers, very good fruit stall… There’s also a market on a Saturday and a farmers’ market every second and fourth Saturday in the month.” – Annie
JW Sargeant butchers
Holly House, Stow Road, King’s Lynn, Norfolk PE34 3PP; 01366 382232
“This is a very good butchers about 20 miles away. It’s a bog-standard local butcher with an awning and a queue out the door but they have their own abattoir so (a) you can get everything you need from there: pig’s bladders, not a problem. And (b), they’re very hot on animal welfare, as a matter of course. It’s not ‘we do local and sustainable so let’s stick a zero on the end’ – London butchers drive me nuts because of that. It’s just a really good butcher that does what it does properly.”
Boccadon Farm Veal
Bocaddon, Lanreath, Looe, Cornwall PL13 2PG; www.bocaddonfarmveal.com
“I order a veal box from Boccadon Veal in Cornwall every so often – they supply a lot of restaurants around the country… I also bring quite a lot back from gigs. If I’m working at a National Trust site they often have very good shops – venison from their own herds, that kind of thing. And especially the bits you can’t buy that easily: heart, kidneys, which I like.”
Topping & Company Booksellers
9 High Street, Ely, Cambridgeshire CB7 4LJ; 01353 645005, www.toppingbooks.co.uk
“They have an amazing cookbook selection and it’s independent and it’s just one of the best places ever.”
Cherry Hill Chocolates
28a High Street, Ely, Cambridgeshire CB7 4JU; 01353 666617, www.cherryhillchocolates.com
“There’s a really good chocolate shop in Ely actually. The woman who runs it deliberately seeks out interesting producers, chocolates, sources. It’s mainly little chocolates you put into boxes, but quite a lot of eclectic bizarre stuff.”