Michaelhouse Café could probably claim the oldest history of any in Cambridge, although it has actually only been a café since 2002. The church has been around since 1323, when it was St. Michael’s, the college chapel for Michaelhouse, the college which Henry VIII merged with King’s Hall in 1546 to create Trinity. It’s also the setting for the Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles by Susanna Gregory. If you’re interested to read more, the café does produce a leaflet detailing its long and fascinating history, which is well worth the read. The mediaeval Hervey de Stanton Chapel, which is set aside for meditation and prayer, is still central to the setting, but it’s so discrete you don’t have to notice it if you don’t want to. The interior is inviting and friendly, with the walls serving as space for exhibitions and displays, and the high ceilings turn the noise into a nice background murmur, rather than anything distinct and distracting. Most appealingly, the church interior still remains, and the stone walls, stained glass and decorative columns serve to give it a lot of character and charm.

So much for the historically interesting and aesthetically pleasing surroundings – but what about the food? Michaelhouse very much feels like a café for the wintertime, perhaps because of its generous, filling and warming hot food portions. The menu changes daily, but usually has a selection of around four delicious hot dishes, such as casseroles, quiches and bakes, as well as a soup and a pizza slice. There is at least one vegetarian hot dish, and to my knowledge the soup and pizza are usually vegetarian as well. The pizza and hot dishes are served with a side salad (the yummy dill and mustard dressing is very much recommended) and the soup is served with slices of Michaelhouse’s own freshly made bread.

Other lunch options are the sandwiches (also served on fresh bread), burgers, and the salad bowls (pro-tip: a bowl of one salad portion is only £1.60, and if you arrive at peak-lunchtime, this can keep you going until food becomes half-price at 3pm. The lentil and rice is a good one to go for here). The savoury food is really where the Michaelhouse delivers, but as the surroundings are so welcoming, it makes a nice spot for tea and cake as well. The teas and coffees are standard, but reliably nice, and you can get tea refills for 50p. The cake menu also changes daily, and usually includes cake, biscuits, brownies and flapjacks.

For a student budget, the Michaelhouse can seem a little pricey, with an average hot lunch of £8-£10. However, if you go prepared, you can end up with some very good deals. After 3pm every day (including Saturdays), there is a half-price lunch deal on all hot food. The catch is that by that point they have often run out of some dishes, so the deals works best if you go prepared to take what you can get. As a vegetarian, this always makes me feel a little anxious – a few weeks ago, the person right in front of me got the last bit of the Moroccan chickpea casserole, a fact which still distresses me a little – but it is very unusual not to be able to find something nice for lunch there. If you do manage to get one of the hot lunch options half price, I find that it fills me for the rest of the day, given that the portion sizes are so generous and you’re eating lunch after 3pm anyway. Be warned, though, that on Saturdays the café gets very busy, so you may not have the same free reign over the half priced hot food that you could have during the week.