Midsummer House — Restaurant in Cambridge

Be prepared if you go, it took us nearly 5 hours to get through the nine course menu with very long gaps between courses. In comparison to a 22 course tasting menu at El Buli that only took 4 hours, we found the long waits between courses a little bit too much. The food (when it arrived) was really good with some outstanding dishes and faultless cooking. The tasting menu in our opinion lacked a fish dish which we found quite disappointing. Also my partner is not keen on pigeon, so asked to swap it for an alternative meat or fish dish, but was told she could only have one choice and that was a vegetarian celeriac tart.

The kitchen was a bit quick to start serving the food and dishes began to arrive before I had had a chance to browse the wine list and order a drink. But this was the only time the food would fly out, for the rest of the evening the pace slowed to up to half an hour between courses! Unfortunately the wine I had chosen was obviously not fully chilled, and the first glass was a little warm although it later cooled down in the ice bucket and was far better!

We never spoke to the sommelier that only had time to appear at the tables that were spending out on the wine flight (£145 per person extra) so we were landed with her apprentice. Although enthusiastic, we found her description and understanding of the wine list rather limited. I have never heard wine described as "insane" and every bottle on the list seemed to be her favourite. As much as I wanted to believe she had tasted the whole list, I very much doubted this as when asked the difference between several different white wines of the same grape variety, she was unable to offer any assistance other than to point out her favourite.

It’s clear this place takes too many bookings and we found the tables were too close together to be private. There is a softly spoken type of atmosphere amongst the diners, and no music is played to break the sometimes very hushed environment.

The portions of food are small and very little protein is offered in any of the dishes. A main course of scallop was just one scallop cut in to three small slithers and this would be the theme of the menu throughout the meal. Some dishes were stunning such as the suckling pig with carrot and ginger which was a masterful work of flavour and textures and delivered a perfect balance on the plate. This type of cooking was really worthy of two stars.

A nice touch was an extra course of doughnuts at the end, which although a little out of proportion with the rest of the meal (massive portion) was a nice way to end, along with some chocolates that had been made by the kitchen. Unfortunately an error with our bill at the end of our meal and the wrong wine being charged left us with a bit of a bitter end. This was mainly due to the sommelier (who had not spoken to us all night) accusing us of ordering and drinking a different bottle (far more expensive) and asking us to pay for it. This led me to not only refuse to pay for the wine but remove service at 12.5% as well.

If Daniel Clifford really wants 3 stars he has a long way to go. Food is without a doubt 2 star (nothing ground breaking) but I struggle to give the amateur dramatics performance of the front of house even 1 star, although some of the staff worked very hard. I saw at least 3 other tables topping up their own wine, which at this level should never happen!!

In my opinion the tables need better spacing, the bookings need to be spaced out or reduced so the kitchen can keep a good flow going with the tasting menu (half an hour between courses is too long!) and better training and more staff are needed to ensure service expectations are met. Finally the kitchen needs to offer better alternatives if guests don’t like one of the choices and adapt to their client’s needs.

Over all I would recommend this restaurant if you enjoy excellent cooking, but make sure you have plenty of time and deep pockets. Also don’t expect too much from the service which does not make you feel special as so many other top...

Incredibly underwhelming experience if I am honest.

5/9 courses were fish based, which was not to my liking at all as I don’t like fish - ( but worth noting others in the group love fish and still didn’t enjoy any of it).

I’ve been to a few Michelin star establishments and I’ve never had to endure more than half the menu with fish dishes…The non alcoholic wine pairings were frankly quite disgusting, and for the most part undrinkable, and there were no empty glasses there.

Probably well worth sharing that 3/4 of our group have openly expressed their disappointment in the experience so it wasn’t just a personal preference either.

It wasn’t for me unfortunately. Had there been things on the menu I genuinely enjoyed (the asparagus course was nice tbf) sure, we wouldn’t be here as it was lovely theatre albeit a scripted delivery from the staff, but an experience was there to be had. I would even over-look the non alcoholic pairing wine “experiment” had that been the case, but given the general disappointment with almost all of it, I felt compelled to share the feedback which was to be “duly noted”.

Then I had a call from the business manager Nicole to query my feedback and I felt it was right to see what they might come forward with to ensure we were left with a positive impression, but we ended up in a pointless conversation of her saying they change the menu all the time (unlucky me) did offer “meat*” - see below, and I “must have enjoyed it all because the plates were clean”. Now what I didn’t pass to anyone who wanted it delicately and discretely, I did sit there politely and eat it to ensure I didn’t ruin the experience for everyone at our table and around us, by making a scene.

*The 2 “meat” dishes claimed were offered were the duck liver and pigeon, which id argue is offle and game respectively, but I am certainly not an expert so looks like sleeping dogs will be allowed to lie on that one.

I expected them to do more about our shared disappointment and give some incentive to come back, given the menu does change I would have been prepared to come back when there’s something more broadly to my liking available, but post my conversation with Nicole that won’t be happening, but Nicole did assure me she looks forward to reading my review, so I hope it doesn’t disappoint.

Having read some of the other reviews fair to say it stinks of greed and pretence here guys. Would avoid and certainly do not recommend. Some of these reviews though provide some solace as I am not the only one to take a...

Extremely disappointing experience at 2 Michelin stars restaurant, most of the dishes were delicious however not mind blowing level, way too many unnecessary components, each course was coming with 2 or 3 different plates and dishes, didn’t create much harmony or pairing and in fact it was making it harder to focus on any of them, they all had interesting flavours with such unique combinations however at the end of the day you have no idea what you just had and won’t be able to remember the flavours in the future bc it’s mixed up way too much without any clear purpose of the dish… really good examples of ‘overrated and incorrect fine dining’

Horrendous service as well overall, the restaurant was very cold as 3 different air cons were working with full power and the wind kept hitting us directly so had to tell to the staff if they could make some changes TWICE to actually solve the problem, one of the worst wine list I’ve ever seen in Michelin starred restaurant, all of the wines are extremely overpriced… inducing people to order wine pairings instead? So I went for the cheapest pairings and it wasn’t actually too bad, except that whenever they explain the wines and how it’s meant to go well with the dish, they were struggling to describe it properly with very bad diction, almost felt like they were nervous and unsure about what they were saying, asked couple of questions regarding some foods and wines, couldn’t really get clear answers from the staffs straight away as they were just mumbling?

Spent almost £1,000 for 2 people, definitely not worth the money, seriously wonder how this place deserved 2 Michelin stars for 20+ years? I’ve been to few other 2 stars restaurants and by far this place has been the worst… the restaurant was awkwardly quiet so some background music would be great as when we first walked in there’s almost no one in the dining room so it felt super creepy, it’s just small details that they need to look for in order to make customers feel more comfortable and relaxed, definitely need a lot more training on staffs especially on knowledge parts so they could speak up a bit and explain things in a much better and clear way, keep the foods bit simple as well because all those hundreds of components won’t make the dish any better and rather ruin the flavour as it creates zero harmony and chemistry in between

Also seems like they pay people to write a good review or make fake accounts to do that which is such a shame to the restaurant for their fame and...