The Cambridge Bar & Grill

It was very Ashes to Ashes for Edinburgh’s plod back then...

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20 Young Street

0131 226 2120

thecambridgebar.co.uk

Google for Gastro-pubs, Edinburgh and whilst not quite a Googlewhack, you’ll receive very few hits. I tried a popular web-site for no other reason than it had the Canny Man’s listed as No.1 of twelve in Edinburgh, and given that the Cannys, de facto, is one of the finest bars in all the world, I hoped I might trust its other recommendations.

But it’s fair to report that the term gastro-pub is much maligned. Reputedly coined in 1991 by the owners of The Eagle in Clerkenwell, the move to introduce better bar food is now considered a poncification of traditional pubs. Regular readers will therefore be unsurprised to hear that I enjoy them immensely.

I had decided to do something more random for this review than my usual where do I fancy eating tonight at the expense of Gouldie? It’s all very well for me to be living it up, enjoying myself in some of Edinburgh’s favourite eateries but, on the whole, they’re likely to offer pretty good fare and I’m not going to get much fun slaughtering them in print.

So randomness embraced, Sweetness and I set out without a booking on a Saturday night in the direction of Edinburgh’s West End. First, we looked into the bar of the Hudson Hotel – a self-styled New York Loft bar. Aye, right. If your idea of New York is a room full of tourists, hen-night lovelies bedecked in (what I’m assured are called) fascinators, and crap, loud music, then you’ve frequented the wrong bits of that great city. The Spotted Pig can rest easy.

Upon exiting, I suggested ‘wandering over to west George St to see how it’s looking these days’, and off we trundled. Okay, was the assessment, but not really what we were after. ‘How about wandering along Young St’, I mused aloud, ‘to see how the Cambridge Bar looks these days?’ ‘I’ve got ‘taxi shoes’ on, she said, I’m not wandering any further.’ So, in deference to her feet, we stopped-off for a swift one in the Oxford Bar.

From that aforementioned list of 12 gastro-pubs, The Cambridge Bar is listed as No.7.  An old pal of mine, a sergeant with Lothian & Borders Plod at the time, told me the story of a coded message he would send to his colleagues down the police wires – we’re at the University; send reinforcements. His colleagues would have no difficulty guessing at which establishment to rendezvous for an illicit, mid-shift pint since the Oxford Bar and Cambridge Bar are no more than 100 yards apart on Young St. All very Ashes to Ashes, but I’m sure it’s not like that now with Edinburgh’s finest.

Eat your heart out
Anyway, refreshed by the Oxford snifters, we managed the hundred yards along to the Cambridge without a taxi, and decided to give it a try. I can categorically assure you that this decision was more feet-related than the fact that the place had 4 large, flat-screen TVs, all of them alight with the magnificence of the Blaugrana – yes, Barcelona were playing Valencia. Who could resist that when accompanied by fine ale and ‘gourmet burgers’?

Because that’s the sum and substance of the menu at Cambridge Bar & Grill, to give its full, scrubbed-up title. No starters. No (other) mains. And no puddings (except a waffle, a brownie or an ice cream). So, ensconced at a table by the window, a beautifully-poured pint of Stewart’s Pentland IPA in front of me (Deuchar’s eat your heart out), a fruit-based drink for the fairer half, with a fine view of one of the tellies, and Barca already a goal up thanks to the peerless Messi, we contentedly perused the starterless menu.

We ordered a 7oz Aberdeen Angus beef burger (£5.95) with melted Camembert and cranberry sauce (an additional £1.55) and a ‘classic chicken’ with trimmings (also £5.95). We shared a side of fries and a side of coleslaw (£1.95 and £1 respectively).  You have to go to the bar to order and whilst there I asked about the vintage of the Pinot Noir on their wine list. Not only did the bar staff not know, they didn’t know they even sold Pinot Noir. At the most expensive offering (£22.50), it’s clearly not a best seller. I was also told that we needed to order puddings at the same time, because the kitchen closes at 9pm. After all our wandering, it was probably around 8.40pm (I could probably be more precise, because Barca were 2-0 up by this time, but life’s too short), which struck me as a tad early to be thinking about waffles and chocolate brownies, but we ordered them anyway.

Our burgers were good. Indeed Sweetness pronounced the beef burger very good – plump, juicy and clearly made with good quality steak mince. The classic chicken was actually a couple of pieces of char grilled chicken breast in a bun, which is no bad thing, but its taste was slightly overpowered by the relish. Another drawback was that we were told that the puddings were going to have to be delivered at the same time as our mains because the kitchen was about to close. As the well travelled among you will know, this is a common occurrence in restaurants on Greek islands, but I’ve never encountered it in the UK. If we’d been told this when placing our order, we wouldn’t have bothered with the puds.

Barca bit optional
But I must give credit to our waitress; she delivered the information with a warm smile and said she’d hold back as long as she could. So we were all of halfway through our burgers before the waffle and brownie arrived, with accompanying Mackie’s ice cream that immediately began to melt alongside the heat of its pairings. All of which said, they were rather good too (both were £3.95). The waffle came with a sprig of fresh mint, which lifted the taste – a small matter, perhaps, but small things matter in this industry – and the brownie was very chocolaty.

If you’re in the market for a simple beer and a burger (the Barca bit would have to be optional) you could do a lot worse, and could spend a lot more of your hard-earned, than in this welcoming New Town bar.