Graduate Cambridge

Punts are what Cambridge does on its river, and Graduate Cambridge has brought them indoors twice. In the lobby, Scudamore's punts a hundred years old, restored, line the wall. Upstairs the bed ends are made to look like them, which we thought quite cool, and which makes them the only punts in town nobody has to push. The University gets the same treatment: heraldic crests frame the reception, and a light shaped like a double helix honours Rosalind Franklin, one of its alumnae.

There have been hotels on this site since the 1920s, which in Cambridge counts as recent. The present building went up in the 1970s and spent years as a DoubleTree before Graduate reopened it in 2021, the first of its hotels in the UK. Ours was a Graduate King, booked as the standard room, and the standard room is fine: you are here to explore Cambridge, and the bedroom is where you rest between goes at it. Children are taken in every room and dogs are welcome, so nobody has to be left at home.

Garden House, the restaurant, cooks a seasonal menu of East Anglian and British produce over fire, and does a Sunday roast besides. The Garden Bar mixes its cocktails bespoke or classic, and the bar was the other thing we came away liking.

The location does most of the work. The Mill Pond is a minute's walk from the door, with punts leaving a few steps away for anyone the lobby has given ideas. The Backs are a tenth of a mile off, and Market Square is eight minutes on foot. After a day of colleges, the Leisure Club has a pool that overlooks the river, with a gym and a sauna, for anyone who would rather look at the Cam than be on it.

We went in January. The Mill Pond is at its most delightful in summer, which is also when The Garden takes the restaurant's menu outside, and the cocktails with it.