A Review: The Famous 'Fitzbillies'
Fitzbillies, located on Trumpington Street, Cambridge, is a small coffee shop come bakery in the heart of the city. Established in 1920, it's been a favourite with locals for generations. With fantastic reviews from the likes of Stephen fry, my boyfriend and I decided to pay it a short visit. It didn't really turn out to be so short in the end though.
First impressions were good, it wasn't as busy as we expected it to be, we were seated quickly and the overall feel of the place was clean, bright, quirky but also traditional. We were quite impressed to begin with actually. It even came with a little gift shop!
The bread smelt gorgeous and the cakes and pastries looked delicious. We could have spent all day in there, just eating cake and drinking coffee, needless to say we resisted that part!
That being said, by the time we were seated, service suddenly began to blow hot and cold, friendly from the man who guided us to our seats and took our orders, but bordering on rude when given our food and drinks by the waitress. We were then left waiting for a long time after we'd finished to pay the bill. It's a shame, but it's the only thing that has stopped this review being one which sings it's praises because I'd have loved to!
The décor was bright and colourful, with just about the right amount of modern mixed in with the old fashioned, traditional 1920s style of Fitzbillies. To say it was small, they had made the most of the space available to them, ensuring that everyone who stumbled into their establishment could sit down and enjoy a cuppa and cream cake.
We both had a Chelsea Bun. I was umming and arring about having a cream tea, but according to a lot of people, celebrities included, Fiztbillies serves the Chelsea Bun is the best in the UK. People even order them from all over the world, just to get a taste of the famous pastry.
It isn't the sort of Chelsea Bun that you buy at the supermarket. This one doesn't come with icing, it has more of a syrupy glaze, topped with raisins. The texture was beautiful, golden brown with a light, fluffy interior. It was divine, worth £3 and worth the trip to Cambridge just for that.
I had an Earl Grey tea while my boyfriend had a cafetiere, enough for two cups of coffee. The tea was standard, nothing special really but was served in a generous sized pot! The coffee on the other hand hadn't been prepared properly. In other words, the person who had brewed it in the first place had plunged the top down a bit too quickly. Other than that, it made for a pretty good cup of coffee!
The prices were relatively reasonable. They could have charged a lot more for their famous buns really, so it's good that they didn't take advantage of that. The pot of tea was no more than £3 and neither was the coffee. It makes for a super cheap, quirky pit stop if you're around Cambridge for a mini break or if you've just started university there.
overall, it's a great place to eat, drink and chat. It's not too noisy, the buns are delicious (so the rest of the food should be as well), the tea is to be as expected and the coffee is tastier than your average filtered black. In conclusion, it's definitely worth the hype and worth a visit if you're ever out that way!
If you're interested in what else we did during our time in Cambridge, then I logged it all here on my blog, I'll leave links below for you in case you're interested :)
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I hope you enjoyed this post, I will see you soon, with a brand new blog post for you!
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