Cambridge, GB

Cambridge's pinnacle of fine dining, a two-Michelin-star restaurant in a Victorian villa on Midsummer Common serving an ambitious modern-British tasting menu. It's a destination meal for a special occasion. Best for a long, celebratory tasting dinner overlooking the common.

A small French-inspired bistro on Mill Road recommended by both the Michelin and Good Food guides, serving precise seasonal cooking at unusually fair prices. It's the neighbourhood's quietly excellent fine-ish dinner. Best for a considered dinner that punches well above its price.

An informal Mill Road Italian cooking the simple, honest dishes the owners' grandmothers taught them, with handmade pasta and a warm family feel. It's the antidote to chain Italian. Best for a comforting, unpretentious plate of proper pasta.

A hidden Mill Road gem serving genuine Lebanese cooking, from fresh mezze and kebabs to baklava, with a lavish shisha lounge. The flavours and the atmospheric room make it a local favourite. Best for a long, shared mezze dinner with a group.

A North African restaurant on Mill Road decked out like the inside of a Bedouin tent, serving Moroccan and Tunisian tagines and couscous in a genuinely transporting room. The atmosphere is as much the draw as the food. Best for a cosy, atmospheric dinner of tagines and mint tea.

A well-regarded Mill Road spot for dim sum and Chinese-Asian cooking, with char siu, dumplings, and a wide drinks list in a relaxed room. It's the local pick for proper dim sum. Best for a shared dim sum lunch or a casual Chinese dinner.

A buzzy Mill Road spot famed for Detroit-style deep-pan pizza, boozy brunches, and locally sourced ingredients, with the butcher and craft-beer shop both across the road. It's loud, fun, and firmly local. Best for a weekend bottomless brunch or a thick-crust pizza and a craft beer.

A small, excellent fish restaurant on Mill Road with a tight menu of seafood cooked with quiet flair, a rarity in this landlocked city. The simplicity and quality win locals over. Best for a fresh, unfussy seafood dinner in a city short on it.

An ambitious South Indian restaurant bringing refined regional cooking and dosas beyond the usual curry-house template, with guide recognition to back it. It's the city's most interesting Indian cooking. Best for exploring South Indian dishes you won't find at a standard curry house.

A bright, modern plant-based restaurant in the centre making vegan food genuinely appealing rather than worthy, from bowls to burgers to creative mains. Even committed meat-eaters leave happy. Best for a fresh, plant-based lunch or dinner in the city centre.

A laid-back specialty coffee shop near the Round Church pulling careful espresso with cakes and pastries, a favourite of students and coffee snobs. It's the central spot for a serious flat white. Best for a proper coffee and a quiet sit between college visits.

A Sicilian cafe-bakery in the centre serving arancini, focaccia slices, cannoli, and proper Italian coffee to a constant queue. It's a fast, delicious central lunch and a sweet stop in one. Best for a grab-and-go Sicilian snack or an afternoon cannoli.

A friendly neighbourhood deli-kitchen in Romsey serving breakfast, brunch, hearty lunches, cakes, and good coffee away from the tourist centre. It's where east-Cambridge locals start the day. Best for a relaxed weekend brunch in a residential neighbourhood.

A cult Cambridge gelato maker churning inventive, seasonal, ever-changing flavours from a tiny central shop, with a queue out the door on warm days. The flavours rotate daily and lean adventurous. Best for an after-dinner scoop of something you won't find anywhere else.

A picturesque riverside pub in Newnham overlooking the millpond and the punts, serving pub classics on a deck right above the water. The setting is the draw as much as the food. Best for a riverside pint and a relaxed pub lunch away from the centre.

A classic riverside walk southwest from the city through open water-meadows to the village of Grantchester, ending at the famous Orchard Tea Garden where generations of poets and scientists have lounged. The flat path along the Cam is pure pastoral England. Best for an easy walk to a village tea garden and a riverside picnic.

The stretch of college lawns and gardens running along the Cam behind the grandest colleges, crossed by historic bridges and best seen from the riverside paths and Queen's Road. It's the most beautiful walk in the city. Best for a slow stroll past the college backs, ideally at golden hour.

A large riverside common just north of the centre, with a tree-lined avenue, an open-air lido, and paths along the Cam that link to Midsummer Common. It's the city's central green lung for walks and runs. Best for an easy riverside stroll or a summer dip in the historic lido.

A pocket of grazed water-meadow right beside the city centre where cattle graze along the Cam, with paths linking Sheep's Green and the mill pond. It feels astonishingly rural for its central location. Best for a short, surprising bit of countryside a few minutes from the colleges.

A wooded country park on the Gog Magog Hills south of the city, with trails through beech woods and around an Iron Age hillfort ring, offering the closest thing to a hill walk near flat Cambridge. The woods and the modest climb make a refreshing change. Best for a longer woodland walk with a bit of elevation.

A network of lakes, woods, and meadows just north of the city, reclaimed from old gravel pits, with flat, family-friendly trails and a cafe. It's an easy green escape on the northern edge. Best for a flat, accessible walk or a gentle family ride around the lakes.

The university's grand free museum, with everything from Egyptian antiquities and Greek vases to Turners and Impressionists in opulent galleries. It rivals national museums and rarely feels crowded. Best for a half-day of art and antiquities, or a focused hour on the highlights.

A unique house-museum and modern-art gallery where a former curator's home is preserved exactly as he arranged it, with art, pebbles, and light in quiet harmony, alongside a contemporary exhibition space. It's a serene, idiosyncratic counterpoint to the grand museums. Best for an unhurried, contemplative hour with modern art.

The long-established outfit for punting the Cam, whether you pole your own flat-bottomed boat past the college backs or take a chauffeured tour with commentary. Drifting under the bridges is the quintessential Cambridge experience. Best for a sunny afternoon gliding past the colleges, drink in hand.

A free natural-history museum centred on a vast finback-whale skeleton suspended over the entrance, with specimens collected by Darwin himself among the displays. It's beautifully redisplayed and engaging for all ages. Best for a family visit and a look at Darwin's own specimens.

A small, moving museum at the Scott Polar Research Institute telling the stories of Arctic and Antarctic exploration, including Scott's doomed expedition, with artifacts, art, and last letters. It's compact but quietly powerful. Best for a focused, atmospheric hour on the heroic age of polar exploration.

The city's main producing-and-touring theatre near Market Square, staging drama, comedy, dance, and pre-West-End runs in a handsome auditorium. It's the heart of Cambridge's mainstream live performance. Best for an evening of touring theatre in the centre.

The university's student theatre and the historic home of the Cambridge Footlights, where the likes of Fry, Laurie, and Mitchell first performed. Tickets are cheap and the comedy and drama are often startlingly good. Best for an inexpensive, lively evening of student theatre and emerging comedy.

The city's main concert and comedy venue, a Victorian hall hosting touring bands, stand-up, and family shows. It's the room where the bigger names play. Best for a gig or a comedy night when a touring act is in town.

A local craft brewery with a relaxed taproom in a yard off Newmarket Road, pouring its own beers to a friendly, mixed crowd on open evenings. It's an unpretentious, locals' alternative to the pubs. Best for a low-key evening of fresh local beer in the brewery yard.

A contemporary arts and live-music venue near the station hosting gigs, club nights, comedy, and theatre across multiple spaces. It's where the more current and alternative programming lands. Best for an evening gig or comedy show with a younger crowd.

The soaring late-Gothic chapel that is Cambridge's defining landmark, with the largest fan-vaulted ceiling in the world and Rubens' Adoration of the Magi behind the altar. Hearing the famous choir at evensong is the way locals experience it. Best for the architecture by day or, even better, choral evensong by candlelight.

St John's College's enclosed neo-Gothic bridge over the Cam, built in 1831 and reputedly Queen Victoria's favourite Cambridge sight. It's best seen from a punt gliding underneath or from the neighbouring Kitchen Bridge. Best photographed from the river or the public bridge just downstream.

The famous wooden footbridge at Queens' College, an elegant arc of straight timbers that looks curved, wrapped in apocryphal legends about Newton building it without nails. It's a quick but beloved photo stop over the Cam. Best viewed from the Silver Street bridge just beside it.

The largest and grandest college, founded by Henry VIII, with a vast Great Court, Newton's apple tree by the gate, and the magnificent Wren Library holding Newton's own notebooks and a Winnie-the-Pooh manuscript. It's the heavyweight of the colleges. Best for the Great Court and the free Wren Library on weekday afternoons.

One of only four medieval round churches still in use in England, built around 1130 on the model of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The squat Norman rotunda is a striking change from the soaring college chapels. Best for a quick look at one of the city's oldest and most unusual buildings.

The university church on Market Square, whose tower you can climb for the best central view over King's Chapel and the rooftops. The 123-step climb is the payoff. Best for the rooftop panorama on a clear afternoon, paired with the market below.

A 40-acre botanic garden south of the centre with glasshouses, a winter garden, lake, and systematic beds, founded by a mentor of Darwin. It's a peaceful, beautifully designed escape from the college crowds. Best for an unhurried wander, especially the winter garden on a grey day.

Cambridge's most cosmopolitan street, a long run of independent restaurants, spice shops, vintage stores, and cafes spanning cuisines from Lebanese to Shanghai. It's where locals actually shop and eat, with barely a chain in sight. Best for an afternoon of browsing and grazing across the world's cuisines.

A daily open-air market in the central square that has traded for centuries, with stalls of street food, produce, books, and crafts beneath Great St Mary's tower. It's the everyday heart of the city. Best for a midday graze and a browse between college visits.