Award-winning Cambs village restaurant named among best in UK shares secret to success

A popular Cambridgeshire village restaurant has shared the secret to its success following its recent award win. Provenance Brix + Mortar, in Whittlesford, was named the best in the county at the 2024 Muddy Stilettos Awards.

The restaurant serves food prepared with seasonal produce by local farmers, many of which are sourced within a five-mile radius of the venue. A range of locally sourced meats, fish, vegetarian and vegan dishes are cooked with a brick-built wood-fired hearth.

It is only a short drive from Cambridge down the M11 and has gained a popular reputation amongst locals over the years. Reviewers on platforms such as Tripadvisor have praised the restaurant's 'lovely atmosphere' and 'extremely tasty food'.

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Kate Holden founded the restaurant along with Greg Proud in January 2019. They initially operated as Provenance Kitchen, cooking out of an airstream trailer and catering for events, businesses, weddings and pop-ups across Cambridge.

Kate said: "Our ethos was delivering really high quality, sustainable and seasonal food to restaurant standard but from our trailers and we did that for about five years. Then our prep kitchen changed and we ended up moving it to Brix + Mortar's site.

"We operated here for about six or eight months just using the building as a prep kitchen and then we decided actually we would like to open a restaurant and so we set about getting it ready and launched in 2019."

Following their recent award win, Kate described it as 'really motivating' for the entire team and said they were all delighted. She said that they were a huge part to the restaurant's success and that cooking dishes that resonated with people and enhanced their dining experience was also a massive factor.

She added: "We're absolutely delighted because obviously we're a pretty small team. We all work incredibly hard to deliver the highest standards of food and service so to be recognised in that by winning the award was really motivating for everybody really.

"I think cooking over fire resonates with all of us. It elevates the dishes and we try to create a menu that is accessible for anybody and cater to everyone's needs, whether they're vegan, coeliac, gluten free, dairy free, because we prepare our dishes from scratch, it means we modify and make everyone feel like their dining experience is fantastic and they're not limited or an afterthought.

"Our team are warm, friendly, personable, engaging and make people feel like they are really important, which they are. A lot of people don't get to go out a lot now because of cost of living, but we have lots of people that come to celebrate and we want to make sure they have a fantastic time and leave having really good memories of the food and the service."

Looking ahead to the future, the restaurant is focusing on ingredients and dishes that are perfect to enjoy in the summer. They are also hoping to expand their nearby Orchard Barn to cater for more events and encourage al-fresco dining during warm weather.

Kate said: "We're very into summer so our focus changes with the seasons so because we're modern British, we take inspiration from all around the world. The flavours and colours are all vibrant, innovative food and obviously as we go into the summer, we're doing a lot of seafood and fish dishes that are quite light.

"We've got this beautiful stretched tent in our meadow garden that caters for up to about 100 covers which is the perfect space for families, people who want to bring their dogs along, and enjoy eating al fresco. We've also got our courtyard that we're developing further, growing lots of salads and vegetables, so people can sit amongst our produce, so that's going to be our focus really."

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