Review: Vanderlyle, Cambridge

Vanderlyle try pretty hard to emphasise that they are simply a fine dining restaurant (and, sotto voce, by the way they don’t use meat or fish). I completely understand why they take this slightly convoluted approach. When I’m thinking about going out for a nice meal, I can feel myself almost automatically skipping my gaze over anything on the list that says it’s a vegetarian restaurant. There’s a vague and assumed idea that it won’t be as satisfying, as good, as worth it. Which is goofy because it’s not unusual for some of the entirely plant dishes (or 90% plant dishes) to be my favourites on any fine dining menu.

So, yes, it seems unfortunate but valid for Vanderlyle to almost seek to hide and downplay their vegetarian credentials, at least until we all begin to see “vegetarian” as simply another cuisine choice like “French” or “fusion”. Their tasting menu is splendid, and I left every bit as happy as after a multi-course meaty-fishy feast.

The restaurant sits incongruously in a row of various budget and ethnic shops and eateries on Mill Road. Inside it is a pared back space with wabi-sabi walls, white tiled kitchen, comfy mid-century styled chairs and banquettes, and a broad kitchen counter where we sat. Well worth it, as the team are friendly and chef Alex Rushmer was happy to chat with us about his ideas and what we were eating.

We start with some delicious snacks, the stand-out being a tiny cone filled with carrot. Yes, but carrot that has really been through the mill. Slowly cooked, dried, re-hydrated with its own juices, smoked a tad, stirred through with a little creme fraiche, and through some magic ending up with a texture and flavour that tricks your palate into believing you’re eating some kind of wonderful smoked salmon tartare that just happens to also taste of the best carrot ever. It’s possible that this modest bite best sums up just what they’re trying to do here; coax the kind of “wow/yum!” moments you usually receive from a bit of animal protein out of all things vegetable.

Another great example was the cashew nut parfait. With the clever addition of a delicately sharp and raisiny Madeira jelly on top, it really took a lot of effort to force yourself not to believe you were eating a particularly lovely and light foie gras parfait. Especially with morels adding their fungal umami note to the dish. Lovely little hazelnut choux bun with a warm hint of nutmeg on the side. Then a fillet of courgette, pressed to give it a more sturdy texture, glazed and grilled to a dark caramelised brown, with a sauce of white asparagus and elderflower that was both zippy and silken. The courgette was of course donning the costume of a nice little fillet of fish, beautifully cooked, and yet it’s only a visual hint, a nudge to the brain as if to say “See? You know the formula, this is that dish you have with a piece of fish and a cream sauce, but it’s courgette.” It absolutely is not an attempt to make veg-that-tastes-like-meat.

Then again, the next dish is the opposite: unashamedly, voloptuously vegetarian. A huge plate of salad, all manner of leaves from local farms, with beets and cucumber, and a flavour-packed pumpkin seed dressing to bind it together. I found red shiso. I loved the seaweed kale – a novelty to me, tasting just like oyster leaf. All in all, there were 26 different salad items in here. Marvellously exuberent! And I say that as someone for whom all of the leafy salads form the very bottom of my pyramid of favourite foods.

So we reach the main course, where the challenge of replacing a chunk of seared meat is seemingly the hardest trick. Here they don’t try anything as bluff as “cauliflower steak” or “king oyster mushroom fillet”. We have a wonderfully deep, dark, rich ragu of root vegetables, topped with a beautifully crisp and golden panisse disc, served with a lush red wine reduction. It was deeply satisfying, utterly delicious, and I’m going to say it: much better than quite a few of the “chunk of meat with a rich jus and a tiny frippery of veg on the side” tasting menu main courses I’ve had over the last few years. If nothing else, it’s so nice to have something different!

Of course, desserts don’t typically use meat or fish, so there’s nothing really for Vanderlyle to do differently here. They actually keep it fairly straightforward and produce-forward: a lovely raspberry sorbet with a little poached peach for a palate cleansing first dessert, and then a muddle of strawberries plus sorbet, caramelised white chocolate dollops, richly cardamom-y custard and a crunchy topping of pistachio and pastry. Rich, but so easy to scoff.

All that, and I forgot the epic chunk of springy and fluffy foccacia with nut-brown oily crust that we began the meal with! The menu is £150 which is great value for the sheer quality (and of course, part of that is a saving on protein produce purchases). We split a wine pairing and a non-alcoholic pairing, and the non-alcoholic concoctions here were a step up from The Water House Project; toasted rice & dates made a very well balanced glass, pineapple weed added funky perfume to an iced nettle tea, and smoky Lapsang Souchong gave a necessary oomph to the red wine-like pairing for the main course. If you need to break through your own “but it’s only vegetables!” bias, may I please steer you urgently towards Vanderlyle?