Alex Rushmer to open new Cambridge restaurant in 2019
Named Vanderlyle, after one of The National’s songs, the restaurant will be “small, relaxed and fun” with an open kitchen and regularly changing menu.
It is opening in a former Subway sandwich shop on Mill Road, Cambridge.
Announcing the launch on his blog, Rushmer says he has teamed up with Lawrence Butler, his former sous chef, for the project.
“Our ‘concept’, for what it’s worth, is simply to cook really great food, without bluster or pretension, so the name had to be ambiguous enough not to have any connotations or create a sense of expectation,” says Rushmer.
The former MasterChef finalist shut The Hole in the Wall in July 2017 after five and a half years. Writing in Restaurant magazine he described the process of closing the site, admitting that he had suffered a “gradual erosion of energy and enthusiasm” over several years but was still “overwhelmingly proud” of the restaurant.
He says Vanderlyle will open four nights a week, “chiefly to allow us to maintain a sustainable work-life balance and spend time with our respective other halves, but also to facilitate creativity and allow us to cook at our absolute best during every single service we were open.”
Alex and Lawrence will be charting the progress of the restaurant on Twitter @ThatLankyChef @ChefAlex and @VanderlyleRestaurant.
