On Saturday night we went to Midsummer House in Cambridge.
Short version - stunning.
Longer version....
This was the menu:
In the evening they only offer an 8 course tasting menu. Despite what the website says about allergies and substitutions (I can't find it now but it says that they only option would be the swap a course out with something from the vegetarian menu) I got the impression that they would be as flexible as you'd expect this sort of place to be.
There were 2 wine flights on offer, an international one or a French one. We went for the international one and the wines are as shown in the menu. In addition we had a glass of house champagne on arrival and a glass of sake with the cheese.
The first course was the one I was least looking forward to. I don't really like celeriac but it was delicious. The hollandaise was unusual, it had been flash frozen in liquid nitrogen but it still tasted very strongly of hazlenut hollandaise.
Scallops are one of my favourite things so looking at the menu I was a bit worried that truffle would overpower the delicate flavour but I should not have worried, the truffle was a very mild one. As you'd expect the scallop was perfectly cooked. Nicely seared on the outside and translucent in the middle.
The rack of lamb was my favourite course. Lamb is possibly my favourite meat so to be given a piece of top quality rack that had been cooked to perfection was great.
For cheese we were spoilt for choice. So much to choose from. A very good choice of crackers, fruit breads and chutneys too.
The thing I like about a wine flight as that we get stuff we wouldn't normally order. The stand out wine was the Riesling that we had with the duck liver. It had an unusual smell, almost like warm oil but tasted creamy and delicious. I'm going to see if I can get a couple of bottles to have at home. My partner wasn't too keen on the red with the lamb, it was a bit sharp for her tastes but I found it a good match.
So all in all I can't fault the food in any way.
Service was excellent. Predominantly French staff who all let their personality shine through whilst remaining fairly formal at the same time. One of the staff looked utterly horrified when she spilt some wine on the table cloth.
There were a couple of things that didn't quite fit though. The champagne we had on arrival was served from a trolley that was wheeled around to each table. That itself seemed a bit odd as it only had champagne, other drinks were at the bar so if someone at the table wasn't having champagne it would seem unnecessary to wheel the trolly around. The flooring is hard stone so the trolley makes a bit of a racket as it's wheeled about.
After the coffee they brought around a box of chocolates for us to choose from. The box was a massive wooden thing with an integrated stand and the waitress was obviously struggling to carry it about. A small box would have worked better.
There's just 1 male and 1 female toilet so you could be in for a wait to use the loo.
That said, they're very minor things and we will definitely return.
Love Flat Iron.
!
