The Free Press/The Kingston Arms-Against Mediocrity

 The Free Press/The Kingston Arms-Against Mediocrity

I started this review like any other: a deconstruction of each dish, the wine menu, how the atmosphere and décor adds or subtracts from the experience and how happy I was to pay for the meal. In writing that, I naturally began drawing comparisons to other pubs in Cambridge and noted that for the most part, dining at them has been an increasingly depressing prospect. With each passing plate of lukewarm sweet potato fries, limp burgers and rock hard chicken wings, I become increasingly annoyed at the pub scene.

95% of pubs in Cambridge follow a model of indifference, nonchalance and arrogance. Most pub food in Cambridge gets me so blue, from both flavour and general contracted illness, that I won’t bother ordering a thing, even if I’m starving. It’s not worth the anger. It’s the frustration - the frustration at having to sacrifice money earned to have it replaced by the blandest platter of carbs and sodium to ever have graced a collection of walls, windows, doors and foundations THAT is often a more sustaining meal than the somehow bone dry yet swimming in grease meals that churn out the pass from your local’s kitchen.

No matter the pub, wherever my friends and I eat, 95% of the time we are met with sad, pathetic, burnt, bland and blemished plates of microwaved crowd displeasers that wouldn’t look out of place on a banquet of Iceland frozen meals. That’s why mums go to Green King. Is it Green King’s fault for the abysmal display of establishments? Yes. The standardised boil in the bag, bag in the fryer, bag cut up into small pieces and served in your sauce fraternity that GK have established is a pox on spending money on food and ultimately leads to the erosion of the standards of the culinary industry that make people want to spend money on food. Especially today where our money doesn’t go as far as it used to and belts are tighter in order to cut the circulation off from our legs so at least only half our body is ice cold. 

But where there is 95% bile, there is a golden 5%. In a sea of bland and beige, The Free Press and The Kingston Arms strike out with ingenuity and an original approach to pub food which must be celebrated. There is a drive to be better and to be different, to provide quality and substance to their food. Where none of their contemporaries attempt to deviate from the tired sodium x carbohydrate x melted cheese triad of the modern public house plate, these two establishments are courageously going where no other pub has been, a menu without chicken wings. 

The Kingston Arms brings a complete new spin on the pub; beer is swapped for wine, sweet potato fries for hummus and oysters. French bistro down to earth, not a pint of Neck Oil in sight, beautiful. If you’re not looking for that, Gorilla and Lamb out of The Cambridge Blue make the best burgers and chips in town. The Kingston Arms, whilst one of the oldest pubs in the city, doesn’t let tradition drag them down. You can find pub classics here but they will be amongst braised ox cheek with polenta and beetroot, zoug chili and dukhah ciabattas.

The menus at The Free Press and The Kingston Arms are a departure from mediocrity and a vision to quality, care and compassion for food. Seeing ramen served alongside mushroom and truffle pasta is such a hopeful ray of light compared to the gloopily engineered, manufactured reproduction of hunter’s chicken, mac n cheese, chicken wings and fish and chips. 

The food isn’t Michelin, but the kitchens at The Kingston Arms and The Free Press are proud of what they’re putting in front of you. There is joy and love in every plate that comes out of their kitchens. They want you to enjoy yourselves and come back. There is a clear passion for food in these two kitchens that is absent in most others. They alienate the typical pub kitchen attitude with care and thought. They’re not interested in making sure all the covers are served as quickly as possible; they’re interested in you enjoying your time with them.

What pubs like the Free Press and The Kingston Arms are trying to provide is some form of alternative. I love the pub. It is a wonderful institution that has been key in creating so many wonderful memories, but it is being eroded by lazy proprietors and breweries that don’t give a shit about what comes out of their kitchens. That’s why I’m writing this - the pub is a cornerstone of the isles we call Britain, and the cornerstone is being chipped away at.

Some reading this may argue that it’s foolish to go to the pub and expect a good meal, but anywhere that is serving a plate of nachos for £14 has forfeited the right to be excluded from critique. Serving £13 camembert that is barely heated up accompanied by stale bread and some rapeseed oil eliminates your ability to turn around and say “we’re just a pub” and shrug your shoulders.Camembert is £3 at a push. When you have that level of markup, you become as scrutable as anyone else. I abhor charging people for mediocrity, regardless of the price. If you charge someone £14 for a meal, it should be good. That’s it. End of story. There is no room for debate here. If you eat a meal and say “yeah, it’s alright”, that’s not good enough. That £14 you have just spent could instead be spent on top quality ingredients that you could use at home to make a wonderful meal. It isn’t enough to be “alright”.

I have no problem with cheap food. It’s the bollocks I can’t let go. Seeing “butter blazed flaxseed brioche bun, dry aged award winning angus beef burger with crispy gold standard pork belly drenched in vintage burger cheese sauce with pickled red onion” only to receive a lukewarm, limp pair of dry buns adorning a tough as leather hockey puck and congealed milk-cheese reduction is daylight robbery and creates a deep pit of guilt. “Why have I paid £17 for this?” I feel dirty.

This doesn’t come from a place of snobbery. I love cheap food as much as I love expensive food. If I spend £8 for a full English at a greasy spoon at 8am, I know exactly what I am getting. There is no façade, no text based carrot and stick trickery. And to prove that, I’ve written an article praising some of the cheapest pub food in Cambridge as the best. The Free Press can start you off with a Pumpkin & Goats Cheese Scotch Egg for £6, followed by Mushroom and Truffle Roast Aubergine Linguine for £12 and finish you off with a Fig and Almond Tart for £5. A three course meal for £23 - that blows anything you’ll find in a city centre pub out of the Cam. 

Is it the best food I’ve ever had? No, absolutely not. But the price of the food with the quality of the food compared to other pubs in Cambridge is the absolute best by a country mile. You are getting exactly what you are paying for. Good quality, tasty food made with care and pride. It’s food that gives a fuck, food that wants you to tell your mates about it, food that is sick to death of what every single other pub vomits out night after night, lunch after lunch. 

Are The Kingston Arms and The Free Press, against its competitors in the pub landscape of Cambridge, mediocre? No, absolutely not. They are on the cusp of something fantastic. The kitchens at The Free Press and The Kingston Arms stop me from binning pubs full stop. I will always champion those institutions that try and strike out. If you want to go for a few drinks with some mates who appreciate a good honest bite made by people who want you to come back, please go to The Free Press or the Kingston Arms. Don’t give the slew of kitchens in the city centre manned by deep fat fryers, microwaves and lazy owners who have either lost or never had love of food any more of your money. They don’t need it. The people at The Free Press and The Kingston Arms do, and more importantly, they deserve it.