Mark Abbott and Sam Carter: 'A perfect fit' at Margaret's in Cambridge
Mark Abbott feels his new role at Margaret’s in Cambridge is allowing him to bring “a bit of fun back to cooking”, with Sam Carter describing his arrival as a “perfect fit” for his restaurant.
Mark spent 14 years at two-Michelin-starred Midsummer House, working his way up to head chef, before opting to move on in 2024.
A move to Aqua Shard in London followed in the summer of 2025, where he spent a year, before recently returning to Cambridge at Margaret’s, which takes inspiration from Sam Carter and Alex Olivier’s Michelin-starred Restaurant 22.
Why did Mark Abbott leave Midsummer House?
Reflecting on the past two years, Mark told The Staff Canteen: “I'd been at Midsummer for 14 years, and I very much started thinking about the next 15 years, to be honest.
“I loved Midsummer to pieces, I had an amazing relationship with Mr Clifford, and I was thinking: do I want to stay here, or do I want to go and do something else?
“That itchy feet feeling was very much apparent.
"Aqua Shard literally just came about randomly - a friend mentioned there was an exec chef job in London, I went to see it, and the venue blew me away.
“That was an amazing experience, and because of the volume and everything I learned there, I feel I brought it to a stage I probably couldn't push much further, because of what it was.
"I messaged Sam and said if you hear of anything in Cambridge, let me know as I still live in Newmarket. He said what about Margaret's? I didn’t even have that on my radar. We had a chat and the rest is history."
Mark added: “It's been good fun. It's amazing when you inherit such a fantastic team, both front of house and in the kitchen.
“I've got head chef Seb (Mansfield) - he's Cambridge born and bred, worked in some brilliant kitchens, an absolute phenomenal, classic, cook. You couldn't get better, honestly.
“Having someone like that to work alongside, developing menus, who gets it straight away, it's been really, really good.
“It's been brilliant. The restaurant got a phenomenal review from Jay Rayner before I even started, so no pressure!
“We've literally been full lunch and dinner. In this current climate, for a restaurant to be doing that at the moment really says it all."
Sam added: “The last six to eight weeks, back-to-back lunch and dinner, we're doing 450 covers a week, which is fantastic."
How did Sam Carter and Mark Abbott first meet?
Sam was still a teenager when he first met Mark, over a decade ago, doing a few shifts of work experience at Midsummer House.
Now they are spearheading one of the buzziest spots in Cambridge together, with Mark in as executive chef.
“All the restaurants in Cambridge have got a great relationship, so we kept in touch,” Sam said.
“The way I see it, if one restaurant's doing well it becomes a bit of a destination, people come for the weekend.
“There's a lot of really brilliant restaurants in the area now. The industry's hard enough, so if you can help a few people out along the way, and vice versa, I think it's good.
“We've got a fantastic team here at Margaret's and Seb's done an amazing job since day one, but it's turned into something a bit more than just a neighbourhood restaurant.
“The covers are huge, it's open seven days a week, and it's incredible for us to have someone of Mark's experience, and he already knows the area, knows the clientele.
“It's a perfect fit, really.
“We're quite ambitious at Margaret's as well, and there's still a lot of work to do.”
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A successful first year for Margaret’s
Margaret’s opened in the summer of 2025 and, as Sam said, has already gained plenty of traction.
And Mark feels the way the food and menus have been handled are playing a key part in the success.
“From the first conversation about me coming, it's all about ingredient, all about product. It very much feels like a restaurant for Cambridge,” said the Northern Irishman.
“We've had people who've eaten here four or five times as regulars just since I've been here. For me that says it all about the restaurant, and the group, that they've got such loyal customers who keep coming back.
"On the menu, that's very much what I want - for someone to come back for lunch today and have something different to what they had two weeks ago, that constant revolving and changing and tweaking.
“There's something about a restaurant that's moving forward - it's exciting, it's fresh. Front of house are really embracing it too.
"For me it's almost bringing a bit of fun back to cooking. I've done the Michelin thing for 15 years and Aqua Shard was very structured because of the size of the restaurant, you didn't have the freedom to just change something on the day.
“Here, we print the menus every day, and to have that as a chef is absolutely phenomenal."
He added: "I think the format of the menu is really clever - I've never seen it before.
“We all know tasting menus, we all know à la carte. What Sam's put in place is: you come in and get an array of starters on the Margaret's menu - bread, dips, then four different starters you can pick at, like a fish-and-chip style cod cheek or croquettes. There's always a cup of soup, chilled or warming depending on the season.
“Then you get a choice of main course, and a choice of dessert.
"I think that's such a cool concept, because tasting menus can sometimes be too restrictive.
“We get two racks of pork in, sell them, then move on to something else. It's fun, and that's the thing I'm enjoying most.
“Alex and the team are really focused on making it feel comfortable and relaxed, and I don't want to change that.”
Sam said: “There's a lot of freedom. What it's wonderful for is the younger guys in the kitchen. Elsewhere they'd get stuck on the same tasting menu for three months, but our guys are learning something new every single hour of every single day.
“It's an exciting place to learn."
The menu is priced accessibly too for the area, at £37.50 for lunch and £65 for the ‘Margaret’s menu’, while the tasting menu at Restaurant 22 is priced at £150, which Sam says has made it become “more of an occasion restaurant now”.
Mark’s ‘respect’ for Daniel Clifford
Among the early guests for Mark has been some of his old colleagues from Midsummer House, including his head chef replacement Liam Anderson.
“I worked there for 14 years,” Mark said.
“I've seen Daniel (Clifford) more than probably most people. He came to see me at Aqua Shard, which was brilliant to have him there.
“I'm looking forward to having him over for a Sunday roast at Margaret's, to be honest.
“When I made the decision to come here, I rang him up and let him know myself, out of respect - I wanted him to hear it from me and not from somebody else. There's a real respect between us both.
“What Liam's doing at Midsummer, and what Daniel's doing at Midsummer - it's an amazing restaurant, an institution. To carry that on says it all.
“It is one of the most iconic two-stars in the country, in my opinion."
Looking to the future with Margaret’s, Sam said: “If you've got a team that believe in it and turn up every day excited about what they do, that transpires into the restaurant.
“Customers can pick up on the excitement in the kitchen and from the front of house team.
“I think it could go places, but step by step.”
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