Food: Our area's top new places to dine and shop

With restaurants, cafes, shops and bars all opening their doors, it's officially open season across Cambridge and Suffolk

The Waffle Hut, street food sister to The Bakery in Newmarket’s Palace House yard, is getting its own bricks-and-mortar site this spring. Moving into what was The Gallops tearoom, opposite the town’s Waitrose store and The Severals, it’s the latest addition to Stellar Catering’s ever-expanding enterprise, founded by chef Ben Cockhill part-way through the pandemic after his former restaurant job was made redundant.

facebook.com/TheWaffleHutNewmarket

Rustico, an independent restaurant serving authentic dishes from across Italy, has opened in Bury St Edmunds. Breathing new life into a timbered 18th century building on Risbygate Street, which has undergone a 12-month restoration, it’s a collaboration between business partners Silene Ziglioli, Michele Pagliuca and Marian Grosoiu, Michele and Marian having previously worked together at both Carluccio’s and Wagamama in the town.

83-87 Risbygate Street, Bury St Edmunds

Known for its fresh and flavour-filled Mediterranean menu, which spans sandwiches and savoury pastries through to sweet treats and 100% Arabica coffee, Ori Caffe has come to Cambridge. Opening within the city’s John Lewis & Partners in Grand Arcade last month, the chain already has branches in six other John Lewis stores nationwide, including Bluewater, Dartford, and Centre MK, Milton Keynes.

facebook.com/oricaffe/

Powters, purveyor of the iconic Newmarket Sausage, has reopened its Wellington Street butcher’s shop in the town following a 12-day, £85,000 refit, updating fixtures and fittings and installing a high-tech cabinet for dry-ageing and displaying beef at the perfect temperature and humidity plus a hot counter for its signature sausage rolls.

powters.co.uk

It started as an online venture in May 2020 and Vino Gusto, the wine business founded by the team behind The One Bull in Bury, has proved such a success, it’s moved into a standalone store on the town’s Hatter Street. As well as buying by the bottle, customers can load credit onto Vino Gusto cards and serve themselves from a selection of available wines. Wine courses are also on offer, led by Master of Wine Nick Adams.

vinogusto.co.uk

Cambridge’s iconic Art Deco pub The Tivoli, gutted by fire in 2015, is poised to reopen next month as a one-of-a-kind food, drink, games and events destination over four floors. Bought by City Pub in 2019, development was paused by the pandemic but is now nearing completion, with a shuffleboard club planned for the basement, a ground floor food and drink space (with Steak & Honour burgers on the menu), two nine-hole mini golf courses on the first floor and a terrace and events space on the roof.

thetivoli.co.uk

Witchford is set to welcome a new sandwich bar this month. Launching at Shelleys Shop, the convenience store house in the village’s Old Baptist Church, it will offer snacks, cakes and coffees during usual shop opening hours and a selection of hot and cold food, too, 8am to 2pm weekdays.

facebook.com/Shelleys-Shop-and-Sandwich-Bar

By the time you read this, Ely Oriental Groceries, long a favourite with shoppers at the city’s market, will have opened permanent premises on Broad Street. Selling all the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian snacks, sauces and cooking ingredients they sold on the market, the team will also be offering an extended range of frozen goods, including dumplings, ice creams and mochis.

elyorientalgroceries.co.uk