The best restaurants serving Other cuisines food in Bourn South Cambridgeshire East of England

It was a Thursday lunch time when I visited. It was quiet with only four or five other customers. I was served quickly by friendly staff. The cheese scone and cake were good as was the coffee. The prices were reasonable making it reasonable value for money. Free WiFi was available, always a plus. Quite nice smart rustic decore, if that is not a contradiction. There is also an outside area to sir. I feel a bit mean 'only" giving it four stars; my head says it deserved five but my heart stopped giving it the full quota of stars. I have visited several times since my first visit, the latest in January 2022. In this latest visit I had a cherry frangipane tart and it was sublime; a nice crispy crust, soft frangipani, plenty of succulent cherries and a delicious pastry base. For this reason I have increased my initial 4-star review up to five. July 2022 - still great. June 2023 - still just as good. September 2023 - still great.

I’ve previously raved about this small coffee shop cum cafe but, disappointingly, I didn’t enjoy the food on our recent visit. We were a family group of five, three of whom had the tuna ciabatta melt which, they said, was very good. However, my grandson’s squash and spinach soup lacked any taste of squash (I tasted the soup) and, actually, with its very dark green colour, I didn’t think the soup looked appealing either. Spinach has such a strong taste and, if it’s being used alongside other vegetables in soup-making, the amount needs to be proportionate to the other ingredients. Unfortunately, the spinach was overpowering and totally drowned out any flavour from the squash. I ordered a home-baked, warm asparagus, spinach, tomato and cheese tart which I can only describe as dire. The pastry was soggy, so I only ate the middle of the tart and left the pastry, whilst the accompanying salad was tiny and boring beyond belief, with just a few leaves, a couple of pieces of tomato and a few bits of cucumber. The salad actually resembled nothing more than a garnish, with a bit of dressing on top, and, at £12, the meal was poor quality and even poorer value for money. The lattes were excellent and my son-in-law enjoyed his Terry’s orange flavoured hot chocolate but there wasn’t a great choice of cakes to go with our drinks so none of us bothered. In terms of the food, there doesn’t appear to be an actual kitchen, just a section within the cafe where a member of staff was preparing the orders. I’d never previously noticed before that there wasn’t a kitchen here so not sure if this is a change. However, only having a microwave and no oven would explain why I had a tart with soggy pastry! Regrettably, I can’t even say that the staff were brilliant. We were mainly served by one staff member who I can only describe as surly looking, leading me to want to repeat a childhood phrase my mum used to say when I was being grumpy, ‘if you smile, your face will crack!’. A second member of staff, though, was so different and really nice. I’d have been happy to have given some honest feedback at the time but, unfortunately, nobody asked if we’d enjoyed our meal. I can say, now though, that my meal was extremely poor and, with a bill of £65 for our group, it wasn’t cheap. Finishing on a positive note, the toilets were clean.

As this is my local, I have to state that I am biased towards my review. However, I continue to say how good value for money and excellent all the staff are. I say this as I observe the staff interactions with other customers and it is always excellent with wonderful banter but with service foremost. Chrissy is happy to chat away when waitressing ,which is lovely, as are all the bar staff, even when busy. Over the years I have seen the standard and portions of food go up and down. Now is definitely an up and things are looking good. I would always recommend the Monkfield good value for money and excellent staff.

Great service and nice food. We would recommend to our friends. We would definitely go there again. The pub is in a lovely village 👍

I much prefer the cafe at the St Ives Morrisons, which appears to have more staff. So tables are cleared and cleaned more quickly etc. They also offer free coffee refills!!