The Anchor — Restaurant in East Cambridgeshire

The Pub is trying too hard to become a fancy restaurant, and clearly intends to produce high end food. The menu is very limited, offering 4-6 main courses if I remember correctly. My dear friend and I had just come back from a long day Karting, and we needed some good food to fill us up. Unfortunately this pub didn't deliver. Not only did I struggle to choose a dish due to the limited choice, but when I tasted the food it was horrendous. In the end I opted for Cod and some olive mash?! The mash tasted of nothing but salt and pepper, and for some reason it was swimming in pesto sauce, including some beans and asparagus. The sauce was so over powering it made everything taste the same, and of course was included with the obligatory addition of salt. I ate my meal due to being very hungry, but in heinseight we should have dined elsewhere. When the polite waiter came over to collect my friends 1/4 eaten meal, and my finished dish, we thought it was nessessary to give some constructive criticism! The nice waiter understood with what we were saying, and went to fetch the chef. To our surprise the 'manageress' arrived and asked why we were unhappy about their food. We repeated the feedback we originally gave and in response we received a very unprofessional, ill mannered comment. When we decided to leave we asked for the bill from the waiter, and he printed up a bill. We questioned the price considering the food quality was so poor, and asked if there was any movement within the charge. We weren't expecting a huge reduction and we weren't looking for free food, we just didn't think it was worth what they were originally charging. After declining to give us a reduction the 'manager' swiftly told us to get out and don't pay. We were leaving and just before we left the establishment we overheard the female manager saying 'get the f**k out'! Enough was enough! We went to the local co-op and bought some chocolate, we both agreed that the dairy milk bar we both indulged was far better than the poncy dinner we just had. Overall, this pub is very poor in food quality and management attitude, but the waiters were great! Shame the great waiters were working in such a joke of a...

Visited August 2020 - under new ownership - staff very welcoming and attentive at all times - we are a family of 5 - myself my wife and 3 children - menu looked good we ordered a mixture of starters and small plates braised pigs cheek was excellent along with the Jacobs ladder short rib and cauliflower with beetroot ketchup, we found the crispy cod to be salty as was our children’s starter from the children’s menu which was basically garlic bread of which neither of my boys ate. We moved onto the main course and unfortunately it went down hill rapidly from here I ordered the sirloin on the bone to be cooked Blue - this was overcooked - I did ask a waitress straight away if it was possible to be rectified which she instantly took the plate away very apologetic only to return 1 minute later with the same steak now cut in a different place by I can only presume the chef to try and find a part of the steak which was Blue but unfortunately it was not, in the meantime my wife’s pork tomohawk has been served and was burnt around the whole outer edge so things were not going great then to top it all my eldest son had his poussin served which was also burnt rendering the Harissa spice useless. By this point myself and my wife agreed enough was enough. Having waited a considerable amount of time between starter and the main course to be delivered, to then have the waitress explain the chef wasn’t happy with the first pork he had cooked that’s why there was a delay, when the mains finally arrived to then have all of the.non child main courses overcooked to the point of being burnt was enough. To summarise the Anchor pub does state it cooks over an open fire of which on our visit it wasn’t cooked on an open fire very well at all, which is a real shame considering the starters that were not salty were...

Popped in for lunch, pleasantly surprised yo see a named chef on the menu and nice interior decor. It raised our expectations.

Staff were friendly and helpful

Went into the beer garden to eat as it was warm and sunny. Witness was lovely but we have no clue as to why she didn't bring cutlery and condiments before bringing our meals.

Food arrived and looked good, even if the fish batter looked a little well done.

However, smashing the garden peas does nothing to enhance flavour or appearance. It does let them get cold much more quickly.

The double width triple fried chips may or may not have looked better on the plate, depending on your perspective, but they didn't eat nearly as well as standard shaped chips, they were way too dry with too much inside and not enough outside.

The fish was nice, the batter was very crispy and crunchy but we couldn't taste the cider in the batter.

Was it worth £15? I don't think so.

And if we had approached the pub from the car park we may not have gone in at all. The mass of dead fridges and empty cooling oil containers and other detritus is distinctly unattractive and the beer garden needs weeding and sweeping and also a pressure wash. . Sadly, the expectations raised by the chef name on the menu...