L’Enclume

Visited last March and a year later, thinking about going again in the future; the lingering memories are that good.
We had the full tasting menu in a group of five and the food was amazing. And the service, wow. Impeccable. Our sommelier was particularly impressive. Not to mention one of our drunken comrades was politely humoured by the staff after the meal and even got to see inside the kitchen :) dream come true for him.
Lastly, as far as 2 starred Michelin restaurants go, this is a bargain.
You must go. Go! Do it now!

In a word… superb! From the moment you walk through the door into the rustic, but elegant dining room you are made to feel special. There is no pretentiousness either and given that it’s just been awarded the accolade of the UK ‘s best restaurant, you could be forgiven for thinking it would be.
The service from the staff is impeccable and very attentive. Some people might not like having an introduction to each plate of food but when your spending serious cash you might as well know exactly what your eating and how it was made.
The dishes in the sixteen course tasting menu are as clever as they are delicious. Each one an explosion on the senses!
You need around three hours for the menu we had and boy was it worth it.
I will definitely go back there and sample the delights of Simon Rogan’s talents again.

I’ve eaten in a number of Michelin starred restaurants over the years, but this was the first time I went for a tasting menu.
The reputation that Simpn Rogan’s restaurant has is amongst the best in the world. Using foraged cumbrian ingredients, produce from his own organic farm and the best of local produce L’enclume has earned itself two Michelin stars (I’m not even sure you can get three without being a french restaurant!)
I won’t bore you with the details, but essentially it’s 16 courses that’ll allow you to sample everything from lobster to venison. Personally I even tried my first and last cockle!!! :)
We stayed at L’Enclume house and had B&B at Rogan & Co. It wasn’t cheap but it was epic!
My only criticism would be with the accomodation itself which was amazing except that I think the walls are made of papermache. You could hear everything in the two adjacent rooms.

One of the best dining experiences I will ever have. The garden to table approach is just one of the reasons this place blows you away with its attention to detail and amazing food. The wine pairings were the most complementary example I have experienced and the staff defined professionalism. Amazing. Probably the best restaurant in the UK right now.

While some may find eclectic presentation kitschy, I love food that is assembled with thought and care, especially when it not only looks amazing but tastes delicious as well.
As it was an Easter weekend, we booked 2 weeks in advance, but could only score lunch reservations. This was okay because it was a 4 hour course and it was much easier to find our way out of Cartmel while it was still light out.
We parked at the racecourse track parking lot and arrived at the unassuming restaurant with our appetites ready. Seated near the kitchen, we were asked if we wanted a 6 course meal (45 quid) or a 21 course meal (120 quid), which changes every day Since a trip to the Lake District is rare, we decided to go with the 21 course. Upon seeing the bf’s intimidated expression, our waiter reassured him that the portions were not huge but reasonably portioned.
Ready? Go!
Appetizers:
1. Oyster pebbles (macaron textured oyster fluids, so yummy)
2. Chicken dumplings (savory dumpling served on a little tree trunk)
3. Ragstone, malt, tarragon
4. Smoked eel with ham fat (creamy and savory)
5. Cow’s heel, curds, onion ashes
6. Raw scallop and caviar (delicate and light)
7. Asparagus and crab sack
8. Creamed potatoes, Tunworth and duck gizzards
Slighty larger, mains:
9. White turnip, maran egg, nasturtium leaves
10. Valley venison, charcoal oil, mustard and fennel (served with little glass balls of sweet liquid)
11. Glazed langoustine, carrot, watercress, raw langoustine, scurvy grass, hazelnuts (langoustine cracker served with a langoustine broth)
12. Salt baked beetroot, ox tongue, yoghurt and apple marigold (freeze dried beetroot served with cubes of beet)
13. Brill grilled over spruce, mussel, salsify and sea vegetables
14. Holker milk fed lamb, sweetbreads, kales, and ramson (this was my favorite main)
Palate cleansers and desserts:
15. Rye, stout and gingerbread
16. Sea buckthorn and butternut
17. Caramel, sheep’s milk, celery
18. Yorkshire rhubarb, apple, sorrel, and brown butter
19. Yoghurt, pear walnuts and sweet cicely
20. Celeriac, sweet cheese, malts (little cones served with scooping of each ingredient)
21. Douglas fir and apple (apple juice)
The BF and I loved this meal because it encompassed so many different vegetables and meat, but it didn’t leave us disgustingly full. Apparently the restaurant gets its ingredients from its farm, and everything tasted fresh and clean. Service was great, and we were well looked after.

We were really looking forward for an unforgettable experience at L’Enclume given the excellent reviews so far. Our overall experience and the food was good but with some underwhelming inconsistencies.
To those planning to dine here, I highly advice booking in advance like we did as they get booked quickly due to popularity. During our booking, we were informed of the set 6 courses meal. We asked about their menu during the booking but it was unavailable. After perusing through the website, it appears that it is constantly changing and mostly based on local and seasonal organic products. The mystery of the menu being unlisted made our excitement grew greater.
The day of visit: upon entry, we were warmly welcomed by the hostess, our coats taken then graciously taken to our table. After being seated, the service went quick. We were serve with appertif and given the set lunch menu as well as the wine list. The server then checked to see if we have any particular food allergy or food aversion from the menu. Shortly after, everything went well from food to service. As for the food, the first 4 courses were spectacular and flawless. The pairing of the ingredients was creative and sophisticated. It left us nodding and impressed. The presentation was modern and minimalist but with the hint of country feel to go along with the ambiance and décor. As we observed, the restaurant was a conversion; we found out it used to be a blacksmith house. It is quite evident as they left many of its characteristics in. Going back on the food, the last 2 courses were questionable. The taste of the ingredients did not seem to blend in nicely to produce that impressive taste to our palate. For instance the oatmeal stout with rye, pear and elderberry vinegar was bitter and tangy. It was one odd mixture of tastes. On the other hand, the rhubarb and yogurt dessert with hazelnut was plain and mediocre. The ingredients did not produce that bursting taste that will make my eyes widened from approval and satisfaction.
In conclusion, L’Enclume was good but not the best.

Amazing! The little food parcels and the beauty of it all. seriously lost for words. Such lovely informative waiters and waitressesand the country yet modern feel of the décorsuch a lovely restaurant.

This is the continuation of my review of L’Enclume:
8. Meadow sweet custard & blackcurrant, white currant granite
This was the perfect palate cleanser. Taking all the elements of this dish in one bite yielded creamy custard, tangy blackcurrant and cool cleansing white currant
9. Compressed strawberries & crispy sheet, sheep’s milk ice cream & sorrel
Once again using the best of British summer produce to give bags of sunny strawberry flavour offset by tangy sorrel and cold smooth ice cream
10. We didn’t have space for coffee but we still received lavender milkshakes and lavender mini cupcakes
The service was impeccable but friendly throughout. Our servers were very well versed in their knowledge of ingredients and the provenance of their produce.
I asked if it would be possible to have a kitchen tour at the end of my meal and Simon Rogan kindly obliged. I loved meeting and chatting to him — I could see the passion in his eyes and it was nice to be able to congratulate him personally on the wonderful meal my sister and I had just eaten.
Then, a funny coincidence happened. When he found out that I lived in London, he said that I should eat at his new restaurant in London. I asked him for the name and he said,“Roganics”. Thanks to Haley F’s great review of Roganics, I had already earmarked this as my next restaurant to try in London.
With a standing invitation to see if he’s in the kitchen at Roganics when I eat there, it’s definitely next on the list! Simon was kind enough to autograph my menu.
Sis and I left as 2 very well fed people. L’Enclume is in my top 3 favourite meals in the UK. It even made the 6 and a half hour drive home in pouring rain bearable!

L’Enclume, Cartmel, Lake District, Cumbria 05.02.11
L’Enclume is owned by chef Simon Rogan and has a Michelin Star and 5 AA Rosettes amongst dozens of awards for best chef etc etc etc. The restaurant is housed in an 800 year old blacksmiths shop. The décor in the restaurant is basic with whitewashed original stone Walls and the occasional painting and modern sculptures dotted around. The food definitely is the star here.
We were greeted by the French Maitre d and shown to our table in the conservatory which overlooks the restaurants garden. Our table was sat right in the middle of the room which made me feel a bit exposed. A quick word with the waiter and we were moved to a corner table in the main dining room with no fuss.
On to the food, amuse bouche was presented on a small piece of slate which was described as black pudding with caramelised leek in fried bread parcels. They looked fantastic but I couldn’t taste anything but the black pudding and fried bread.
The courses then followed shortly after.
1. Carrot sacks with ham and juniper fried cake and cress.
Like the amuse bouche these looked amazing but these definately delivered on flavour, it was like eating a cloud of sweet carrots with salty pieces of ham. The sweet carrot disappeared in your mouth leaving the salty taste of the ham and juniper.
2. Fresh curds and oxtails, grilled lettuce and English mushrooms.
I probably am being biased about this course as I hate mushrooms but the oxtail and curds were perfect served in a consommé of mushroom essence. My wife loved it but the strong mushroom smell put me off.
3. Potted char, radish, fresh cream, dill and rye toast.
I was unsure what char was until this arrived, apparently it is a fresh water fish. This also looked beautiful and delivered in taste with the salty notes of the soft fish balanced perfectly with the cream and the crunch of the wafer thin toast. Perfect.
4. Roasted cauliflower with young squid and elderberry vinegar.
When I first tasted this dish I was amazed that a cauliflower could deliver this much flavour, the baby squid pieces were perfectly cooked and delivered on flavour. If I had a complaint about this course it would be that I felt the squid ink overpowered the delicate flavours of the other ingredients on the plate.
5. Halibut with razor clams, scorzonera and broccoli shoots.
Perfectly cooked fish and clams bound in a beautiful green sauce with exquisite presentation and worked really well with what I assume was the scorzonera. I wasn’t sure what this was but it certainly tasted good with the fish and razors.
6. Regs duck and sweetbreads, mustard roots baked in salt, onion weed
This arrived and again looked like a work of art, being described by the waiter as been cooked in a water bath. To me this course never really delivered, my duck was very difficult to cut with pieces of sinue inside the meat. The vegetables and the light jus were wonderful but the star of the plate the duck didn’t work for me.
7. Caramel mousse with honey wine, gingerbread caramel and yoghurt.
Served in a small pot this was probably one of the least glamorous looking of the courses but wow did it make up for that in flavour and texture. A sweet caramel mousse with little jewel like jelly pieces of the honey wine and the crunch of the gingerbread caramel. This was an absolutely genius concoction of flavours that worked and complimented each other perfectly together.
8. Poached and caramelised quince with buttermilk, damson and rosehips.
A picture on a plate arrived once again with delicate pieces of bright pink meringue resting on top of the quince with a delicate sauce with a sorbet and buttermilk custard, The last official dish of the menu all came together really well and again was perfectly balanced with sweet and savoury tastes with tiny licorice flavour herbs confusing your pallet once again.
The whole experience was superb, if I had a complaint it would be that near the end of the meal one of the waiters started to clean up and was rattling cutlery about preparing for evening service, i am being petty but in this standard of restaurant he good have waited until we were gone.
L’Enclume has been described as in the top 5 restaurants in Britain, the chef grows many of the products in his own small holding near by, he has a research kitchen down the road from the restaurant and has a bistro round the corner.
This was certainly gastronomy at a whole new level by a chef who is nothing short of a genius.

I was very surprised by the above review because my stay at L’Enclume was up there with one of the most rapturous experiences I have ever had.
I needed to book somewhere special for my boyfriend’s birthday in early December, and after a frustrating attempt to book The Fat Duck (setting a reminder on my phone exactly 2 months in advance for the moment the restaurant opened, getting a consistent busy signal for two hours only to be finally told the restaurant was full), I decided on L’Enclume. As a northerner, he’d been desperate to go back to the Lake District for ages; as a self-​confessed city girl, I thought we may as well do it in style.
Our room, next door to the main restaurant, was exactly how I had imagined — boutiquey looking but with enough of an «English Hotel» feel to make you feel at home (i.e. there was the standard travel kettle, but with fresh milk and homemade cookies). The low ceilings and tudor beams made the room very cosy, although I found it very militant that the bath products were fixed to the wall: at around £140 a night, it was hardly likely that the clientele were going to be desperate enough to make off with the shower gel.
We were offered an apperitif before dinner, which was taken in the little sitting area off the main restaurant. These were accompanied by a selection of quirky snacks: I can’t remember exactly what they were, but I can tell you they included a prawn cracker, a lollipop and a tuile, and that they were all delicious. We perused the menu and decided to go for the full-​on 12 courser… it was a celebration after all.
The restaurant already knew that I ate fish but no meat, and this wasn’t a problem at all — I simply had tweaked versions of the main menu. I won’t go through every single dish because I’d be here all day and should probably be working, but it was some of the most exciting cooking I have ever eaten. Flavours combined and exploded and we spent most of the evening ooing and ah-​ing rather than talking to one another.
The staff were also lovely: helpful without being obtrusive: and we made very good friends with a particular young female staff member (I think her name was Rebecca) who I can say pretty much made our night.
Breakfast the next day was slightly less exciting — I think we expected the same crazy experimentation — but this was made up for by lunch at Rogan’s — L’Enclume Head Chef Simon Rogan’s less formal brasserie, also in the chocolate-​box perfect village of Cartmel. It was interesting to see that Rogan is just as adept at making fish and chips as he is a michelin star faire — it’s absolute travesty that he hasn’t been awarded a second michelin star this year, and I for one will be campaigning for it.
A magical weekend — I would go back in a heart beat

This really is luxurious eating, and sleeping too if you choose to slumber in one of L’Enclume’s rooms. It’s won more accolades than you can shake a stick at and the approach to cuisine is very creative.
It’s certainly a treat as it won’t be the cheapest place you’ll ever eat, but you’re given plenty of time to peruse the wine lists and three menus and the staff are very helpful and informative as it can all seem a bit confusing, but don’t worry about it being ridiculously posh and hoity-​toity — the atmosphere is very relaxed and fun, and you must remember you’re here to enjoy yourself. The tasting menus are excellent and they’re exactly the way I like to eat, plus if you’re worried about meat being in anything or a member of your party is pregnant they’re more than happy to alter things to your tastes.
One of the fun parts of being here is the fact that every dish is a surprise, so I won’t disclose too much information but I’d definitely recommend it for its quality and its high levels of attentive service. If you’re after something a little different and are out in the countryside, this is a perfect stop-​off.

Having spent an amazing week in the Lake District, my wife and I decided to round our break off by staying and eating at L’Enclume.
Having read the reviews and in the knowledge that L’Enclume has a string of prestigious awards, including a Michelin Star we expected to have our minds & pallets completely blown away.
The evening started fantastically well. The head waiter and his staff were perfection and roamed the room just out of sight, awaiting the moment that your glasses needed refreshing at which point they would appear as if from no where to do so.
The Sommelier was knowledgeable, friendly and helped us find the perfect match for the multitude of courses that we were about to start. Not an easy task as we had decided to go for the full tour, about 14 dishes as I recall.
Our first few courses were a genius mix of tastes and textures.
Unfortunately as with all dreams, they tend to end suddenly and this was where we awoke
Warning bells should have started ringing loudly when we asked one of our waiting staff what was involved with the dish we had just been presented with and she didn’t know. Apparently it was a new menu and she had not been told nor had she tasted it!
Then as thirst set in we realised that the staff that had been so, on the ball, 15 minutes earlier had suddenly evaporated. This left us sitting waiting to catch either the Sommelier or any member of staffs eye as they dashed onto the restaurant floor and just as quickly ran out again, in an attempt to get a drink.
When we finally did manage to grab someone we were told that the head waiter had gone home and that the Sommelier had come in on his day off to help out and had subsequently gone home again!
This left the waiter we were talking to and what appeared to be 3 or 4 teenage girls. Were not talking mid week here, this was a Friday evening in the height of the tourist season. To add to the increasing chaos when we asked our waiter what wine he would suggest we discovered that this was his first week and neither he nor any of his young colleagues new enough about wine to suggest anything. When their staff did eventually manage to bring us our chosen wine, 20 minutes had passed without wine or water on the table. This is a Michelin Star restaurant!
As I mentioned the food has moments of absolute genius but not all of it. Some was just plain dull and in the case of one particular dish that involved Monkfish with Saffron, frankly inedible. Imagine a perfectly cooked Monkfish covered in what I can only describe as sweet coffee grounds. The type you spend the next 4 hours picking from your teeth, and you’ll get the idea of what I mean. Did no one taste this dish before it was served? Whatever the reason we started to get the distinct impression that we were being used as expensive guinea pigs for the new menu, leaving a taste not too dissimilar to the coffee grounds.
Now ok, I expect a couple of hiccups if I’m spending £20 a head at Pizza Express but not when I’m dining at a restaurant that claims to be as good as L’Enclume does, with a price tag that came out at around £150 a head these hiccups are unforgivable, expensive and childishly simple to resolve for a restaurant of this apparent calibre.
The rooms are pleasant and the checkout time a very reasonable 11am. Just don’t expect a lie in if you have the downstairs room that we had as the Eastern European cleaning staff like to set up camp right outside the door at 8:30 having loud and lively discussions in their native tongue.
And finally, I don’t know about you but when I spend what is nearly £400 on an evening, when I come to pay I expect, courtesy and to be at least asked if I had an enjoyable stay. We were not given a please or thank you nor were we asked how our stay was. Again, something any ordinary hotel does without thinking.
Perhaps I missed the small print that says ‘At L’Enclume Service and Courtesy are extra’
As you can imagine, I would rather eat my toenails than return to L’Enclume again. Saying that if you add coffee grounds to it, it may well be appearing on the menu soon.