The Architect — Restaurant in Cambridge

The food is bad. The drinks are great (mostly). The architect is a mixed bag. It's a very standard take on a traditional British pub, with assortments of chairs and all. If your here for a drink, or to connect with friends, then this place is great. However, if you are looking for a evening Friday fish and chips, I would be weary. The service is decent, however for what was being prepared, fish and chips, it took awfully long. The menu has a very interesting idea, giving you options of meals, what to cover it with, which sauce to have on the side, and which side dish to be included. This works in theory, but in practice all you get is a hazardous mixture of flavours that ends up tasting wrong. Just wrong. If you are going here, I urge you to ask a server for suggestions on what combination of these flavours you should choose, if not you won't be pleased. The food, when broken down into its key components is alright, but that's probably an overstatement. The batter for the fish is often soggy, and really fails to impress. Similarly, their expertly named "architect-slaw" is fundamentally architects take on designing a side that is appetising and delicious. Of course, this only provides the bare minimum ingredients of coleslaw thrown together loosly and sprinkled on a plate. This doesn't work, you can't have coleslaw without mayo or any kind of sauce to give it structure. Clearly this architect knows little about structure. When it comes to drink, it's mostly fine all around, with notable exceptions to everyone's favourite soft drink: diet coke. If you are storing diet coke, please don't let its taste be drowned out by some unknown chemical, fungus or bacteria. I have no clue what it was, but I'm hoping I just forgot what diet coke tastes like and not some deadly, contagious fungus living in the cellar, infecting thousands of drinks with a foul flavour. Overall I think that the architect really needs to improve its menu and its recipes. It's fine being a pub, but if you want to design a proper meal, hire a...

We read a guide on the best gastro pub in Cambridge and decided to give it a go considering it's shortlisted amongst the best. As soon as we walked in we were invested by the smell of fish and chips, we thought immediately that it was the right place to have it. We didn't take too long to realise the smell was hotting our clothes and would stay there forever (or until washing them). We had some whitebait and scotch egg to start, my son went for a kids sausage and chips with beans, I took a fish and chips with seaweed batter and curried lime and coriander mayo, my wife for a beef ale pie with sweet potatoes, mushroom and beef tomato. The whitebait were well overcooked, the scotch egg ok, nothing special, my fish was perfectly cooked however the curry in the mayo overpowered completely any other flavour, the samphire were "woody", I had to spit the wood in the centre of them. The steak and ale pie was amazing, my son brushed completely his kid menu. The waitress was amazing, she did apologise for the samphire and offered a different side instead, unfortunately the chef closed the oven (apparently) so he couldn't make what I have been offered, I had to go for a slow, but I wasn't impressed. Service definitely excellent. It didn't look busy so every noise would bounce back twice, a table near us where very loud every time they loose a game on their phone and the bartender managed to smash a glass behind the bar (next to us) feeling like he did on our table. I guess it's more a matter of layout, but with a bit of more attention it could have been in our...

Sticky tables fake reviews.

Upon arrival everything was sticky implying they don't use the right chemicals/solution for the surface/material and is left with something a gecko would be proud of.

Service virtually non-existent and when approached they couldn't be more dismissive to helping you. More interested in having chats with their friends.

Food was ok if overpriced but nothing to write home about and substandard for Cambridge which has some great places for food and drinks.

Now the reviews.

I have no doubt that shortly after posting this one of their mates if not themselves will post something from a freshly made account which has reviewed half a dozen other local places with stars only and no words. Please weigh up reviews based upon further evidence and actual substance in said reviews.

Clearly do not recommend this place and off bat could list dozens of better places with greater choice, service and value. Frankly choose any road.

If you want further evidence I found this - https://ratings.food.gov.uk/business/1654768/the-architect-cambridge/online-ratings

Yes food/hygiene rating 3. Not surprising given my experience

I await seeing a series of reviews of no merit and if they put effort into the fake reviews for a change at least it will take them a few...