Every city has pizza.

Every city has curry.

Every city has burgers.

What makes a local food scene more interesting is the stuff you cannot simply copy and paste into another postcode.

Peterborough has a few examples hiding in plain sight.

Charters Bar sits on a converted Dutch grain barge at Town Bridge.

Its current two-course lunch menu is £16.50, with dishes including Panang beef, sea bass, Singapore noodles and Khao Pad Ga Praw.

Go upstairs and East Restaurant gives you another dining room on the same vessel, with its own Thai and Asian menu.

Then head up to Westgate and The Brewery Tap is another Peterborough place with a story.

It occupies a former labour exchange/brewery setting and combines Oakham Ales with Thai food including lunch dishes currently starting below £10.

These are not new restaurants.

That is the point.

Sometimes Spotlight spends so much time chasing “NEW OPENING” that we ignore the local places with enough character to survive long after the launch balloons have gone.

And there is a commercial lesson in that too.

Peterborough hospitality does not just need promotion.

It needs reasons to choose one place over another.

On the river.

Inside an unusual building.

Great pre-theatre food.

Best lunch under £15.

Best family table.

Best place to take somebody visiting Peterborough.

Best meal that does not feel like you could be in Milton Keynes, Leicester or anywhere else.

That is a much more interesting restaurant question to ask our readers.

So here is the first question.

If somebody visited Peterborough for one night and you wanted to take them somewhere that actually felt like Peterborough, where would you book?

Not necessarily the fanciest.

The place with the best story, history or memories. Just remember if its uniquely Peterborough it counts so we don't want any large chain restaurants or pubs this is about something more than just great food.