The Vittles Guide to Chinese Restaurants in Cambridge
Cambridge offers a broad range of regional Chinese cuisines. Cici Peng, Edward Moon Little and Siqi Chong share their favourite spots.
Welcome to the Vittles Chinatowns Project. This guide offers an overview of Cambridge’s emerging Chinese restaurant scene. While the town doesn’t have a historic Chinatown, its large Chinese student population makes it one of the most exciting places in the country for regional Chinese cuisine.
You can read the rest of the project here:
Who is Chinatown for?, by Xiao Ma
The New Chinatowns, by Barclay Bram
Crying in Wing Yip, by various
The Vittles Guide to London’s Chinatowns, by various
The Vittles Guide to the UK’s Chinatowns (including individual guides to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow), by various
According to the 2021 Census, Cambridgeshire has the highest proportional population of ethnic Chinese residents in the UK. While Cambridge’s Chinese migration history parallels London’s in some ways, its food scene has largely sidestepped the recent patterns that have swept through the capital’s dining scene: there are barely any Sichuan concepts or biang biang noodle joints, and new restaurant openings are rare due to a high concentration of university-owned buildings, expensive commercial rents and students opting for the sanctuary of college dining halls. Instead, Cambridge offers peripheral regional cuisines that, in some cases, arrived here before reaching London, and I maintain that the best xiao long baos in the UK can be found in the city.
With no centralised Chinatown, the city’s Chinese restaurants can instead be found in dispersed culinary pockets – in residential neighbourhoods, bubbled together along the peripheries of the local shopping centre or along the bustling Mill Road, which houses most of the city’s best independent food shops and restaurants. Cici Peng
Contributors
CP – Cici Peng
EML – Edward Moon Little
SC – Siqi Chong.
1+1 Rougamo Xi’an
1+1, the first Xi’an restaurant in Cambridge, was so successful that it has now opened a London branch in Holborn, a reversal of the usual expansion story. My favourite dish is the vegetarian rougamo, a sort of Chinese burger typically made with minced meat stuffed inside crispy flatbread. The veggie version is lighter, filled with crunchy veg in a sharp, garlic and vinegar dressing that piques the tongue and sits delightfully against the flaky dough – particularly in the warmer seasons when paired with the liangpi cold noodles. In winter, I opt for the lamb broth with handmade dao xiao noodles, which taste gamey in the best way, and the fish with sauerkraut noodles. It includes a delightfully sour broth that leans heavy on pickled mustard greens and sichuan peppercorn, rendering the velveteen layers of white fish even more tender. Sometimes, I get the braised chicken feet as a snack to go – they’re sold in vacuum packs for that very purpose. CP
84 Regent St, CB2 1DP
After the paywall: a husband–wife duo selling Shanghai-style cuisine, plus recommendations for Northern Jiaozi and Tianjin, Yunnanese and Sichuan spots.