The Cambridge Chop House, on the corner of King’s Parade and Bene’t Street, is celebrating its 10 year anniversary this January. To celebrate the restaurant has sourced 600 bottles of Syrah red wine from a favourite supplier, Domaine Gayda, in the Languedoc Roussillon. The celebratory bottles will be available in January at a special price of £16 per bottle, reduced from £26.
Managing Director Oliver Thain explained, “it made sense to partner with Gayda for our 10 year anniversary. We’ve had many a trip to their incredible vineyards in the Languedoc with staff and wanted to offer our customers the chance to try one of their finest reds at a very reasonable price.”
The restaurant was one of the first meat-focused restaurants to open on Bene’t Street, transforming it into what many now refer to as the ‘restaurant quarter’ or ‘meat street’ in Cambridge.
Max Freeman was General Manager when the restaurant opened in 2007, and is now Operations Director for the Cambscuisine Group. He told us his recollections from opening night:
“I distinctly remember the opening. It was a Thursday 13th of December and we opened the door for our trial night, about 20 minutes after the builders walked out of the door. It was freezing, nobody knew how to work the tills and I had a 1-inch gash on my nose from a falling fly insectocutor! The omens were not good. However we made it through Christmas, learnt a lot about ourselves and what we had undertaken. Cambridge Chop House has changed my life and I think it has changed the lives of a few others as well. I’m not a sentimental person but I’ll definitely be raising a glass or 2 to celebrate an amazing 10 years on Dec 13th.”
The Grade II listed building has seen many guises over the years, as a milliner and dressmakers, a wine parlour, a French restaurant in the 70s and 80s (Shades) and a teddy bear shop. It’s also seen its fair share of famous names as a spot where Sylvia Plath enjoyed reading and the place where two leading Cambridge computer scientists (who brought some of the first home computers to the market) - Chris Curry (co-founder of Acorn Computers) and his Clive Sinclair (Sinclair Research Ltd.) reportedly had a punch up in 1985.
The team at Cambridge Chop House recall many famous faces over the past decade, to name a few: Sir Ian McKellen, Sir David Attenborough, Bryn Terfel, John Major, Dara O’Brian, Griff Rhys-Jones, Rory McGrath, Lilly Cole and Jenny Agutter.