Overview
Location: Cartmel – Lake District
Price per head: £350 – £500
Our opinion: A once in a lifetime experience
Summary: A fine dining experience at one of the UK’s best restaurants that lives up to its 3 stars. The best meal of my life up to this point.
Restaurant Review
Louise and I got engaged in October. Our engagement was ever so slightly unconventional in that it was not a surprise, purely because a surprise proposal isn’t the way either of us wanted to do it. Instead we chose a weekend where we would ‘get engaged’ and decided to plan a nice trip around it. This had the added benefit of meaning we could plan the trip together.
Whilst there wasn’t to be any big surprises, we did want a special weekend away. Food is our shared passion and it is where we both get most enjoyment from, so we knew this weekend would focus around a trip to a special restaurant. It took us all of 2 minutes to settle on L’Enclume.
This restaurant has been one we have talked about visiting for a while. It has three Michelin stars, was previously voted best restaurant in the UK, and often appears on lists of the best restaurants in the world, so it felt like one worth travelling all the way up North for. Being located in Cartmel, a small village in the Lake District, also adds another dimension to this place and meant it was an obvious choice for a romantic weekend away.
Cartmel itself is stunning. The epitome of a chocolate box village, surrounded by rolling green hills, and full of lovely pubs with log fires and comfy seating. There are numerous wonderful walks around the area, and a picturesque golf course which overlooks the village and the sea to the South. The village is also only a 15 minute drive to lake Windermere. It truly was a lovely place to spend a couple of days relaxing and breathing in the fresh air (always a novelty to Londoners).
Whilst L’Enclume is a very popular restaurant, and does book up, I would say that it is slightly easier to book here than some of the other 3 star places I have been. This may be due to its location being a little less accessible. When we went to book we could only get a table for the lunch time on the Saturday as evening was fully booked. However, in retrospect I think that lunch is probably a better time to go. There is so much food and the meal takes close to 4 hours, so lunch gave us the opportunity to let our food go down before bed!
We have eaten at a couple of 3 Michelin starred restaurants previously, as well as a few 2 starred places. We had special meals, some we liked more than others, at these places and definitely had dishes to remember. That being said, and I appreciate that this kind of thing is so subjective, for me my experience at L’Enclume was streets ahead. It was the first time I had sat through a meal and when it finished thought ‘I get it, this place obviously deserves 3 stars’. The entire experience was immaculate from start to finish.
From the beautiful website where you book, to the communication from the restaurant ahead of the meal, to the service from the moment you step through the door, to the fantastically knowledgeable sommelier, it was all perfect. And that is without touching on the food. The food was simply divine. This restaurant is not cheap, and one could easily consider this a once in a lifetime experience, but from the moment we left we have been itching to go back.
If you are able to afford this meal, and are looking for a very special place to go, I cannot think of a better option in the UK. A beautiful village in one of the most beautiful parts of the country, with a culinary experience that will blow your mind. If you can, just go.
The Food
L’Enclume is a farm to table restaurant serving an incredibly seasonal menu. There are some classic dishes which are likely to pop up whatever the season, but the majority of the menu changes depending on availability. They only serve a tasting menu and it is normally around 15 courses, which includes 3 amuse bouche and a selection of petit four, as well as the option to select some cheeses from the cheese cart (which came at an extra cost of £8 per head).
Given the huge number of courses I would normally try and only discuss the standout dishes in the blog rather than go through everything. Unfortunately in this case pretty much everything was a standout, so sit back and read through all the culinary delights the kitchen subjected us to.
Amuse Bouche
We started on 3 amuse bouche and after eating these I was certain that we were in for the meal of our lives. All so different, all so clever, and all so unbelievably delicious.
Beetroot tart
Described as Boltardy beetroot, horseradish vinegar and salted mackerel tart, Juices infused with perilla this was the most delicate of little tarts which packed a stupid amount of flavour. The sweetness of the beetroot was complemented perfectly by the saltiness of the mackerel, and the whole thing looked stunning! It was also served with a little shot of beetroot juice, and I am sure there was a lot more to it than just that, which was great. I often find beetroot to be a little too much, but this was all perfection.
Fritter
Described as Fritter of Duroc pig and smoked eel, Lovage and fermented sweetcorn this was the best of the 3. My stomach is rumbling as I write this post. Crispy salty pork, smokeyness of the eel, beautiful light batter and the most wonderful of sauces delivered a delight.
Corra Linn Pudding
When they put this down they called it a fancy cheese on toast. The menu describes it as Corra Linn pudding caramelised in Birch sap, Stout vinegar, aged Corra Linn. This is one of the iconic L’Enclume dishes and is so for a reason. A pudding (yorkshire pudding style) made with Corra Linn cheese and deep fried. It is cheesy, you get acidity from the vinegar, sweetness from the sap (what other restaurant gets sab from the tree down the road?), and more cheese from the Corra Linn on top. I could eat this all day.
Half a scallop
The first of the main dishes was described as Half a raw scallop from Orkney in whey sauce, Pickled fennel flowers and nasturtium. I love scallops, I love nasturtium and I loved this dish. It was subtle yet delivered lovely flavour throughout. Could this meal get any better.
The other half of the scallop
This was roasted with roe powder and Crown Prince squash, apple marigold and nasturtium flower. The roe powder delivered delightful umami flavours and really rounded the dish off perfectly. The scallop was cooked perfectly, had a nice texture to it and the whole thing tied together perfectly.
Chicken skin & potatoes
I don’t even know where to start with this dish, but it was an absolute belter. A pickled walnut and cheddar sauce that was filled with Pink Fir apple potatoes that had been balled into tiny balls. The potatoes had been cooked in chicken fat. There was burnt onion oil drizzled on top. It was rich, cheesy, and chickeny throughout, but the best part of the dish was the crispy bits of chicken skin at the bottom of the bowl. Every spoonful you put in your mouth had wondrous flavours and exciting textures. Louise would have called off the engagement for another bowl of this.
Seaweed custard, beef, oyster & caviar
With so many headline ingredients I wondered how they would make this work. Would I be able to taste everything? Would it make sense?
How dare I question the genius that is Simon Rogan (head chef). Possibly my dish of the meal. I love savoury custard and I adore the umami flavours delivered by seaweed. Coupled with rich beefy flavours, the silkyness of bone marrow, and tied together in a sort of surf and turf all star band with Maldon oyster on base and caviar lead vocals. I would have called off the engagement for another bowl of this.
Vegetables, herbs, flowers & soft yolk
Now this was in no way a bad dish. It was stunningly beautiful and composed of over 25 different elements. A combination of different vegetables, herbs & flowers prepared in various ways (think pickled, roasted, raw, etc) and an egg yolk placed in the middle. All the produce was clearly extremely high quality, the presentation was immaculate, but this dish excited us slightly less than the previous ones. It served as a nice palette cleanser between courses.
Cabbage
After a brief interlude we were on to another banger. Brined Greyhound cabbage topped with grilled Hen of the Woods mushrooms and covered with fermented vegetable juices, elderflower and a grating of Welsh truffle. A vegetarian dish which just had such depth of flavour I was knocked off my chair.
Monkfish
And the hits just kept on coming. This is my other personal contender for dish of the day. Think perfectly grilled monkfish, clearly done on the bbq, topped with sweet tomato molasses, crispy kale leaves and a lump of shrimp butter. This dish was elevated to another level when verbena tea was poured over the butter, melting into the pile of goodness underneath. The bbq notes of the meaty fish, the intense shrimpy-ness of the butter and the beautiful subtlety of the verbena combined to deliver an astounding plate of food. Simon Rogan is a genius.
Dry aged pork
Our last savoury course was rolled dry aged pork served with rainbow chard, grilled alliums (which I have subsequently learnt are spring onions, chives, onions, leeks, etc) and covered with a pork and mead sauce. This was a tasty plate of food, but maybe didn’t quite reach the heights of some of the others we have discussed.
Frozen Tunworth cheese
This was a sort of palette cleanser, but also one that delivered on flavour. Served in the heaviest dish I have ever come across it was made up of frozen blobs of cheese, which was very milky and light in flavour, a malt crumb for sweetness, some preserved blackberries and lemon thyme. It had herbal notes, it had sweetness and acidity, it had texture. Like everything on the menu it had clearly been meticulously designed.
Concord pears
Unconventional crockery for this dish, which was a bit of fun, but also just worked great. We didn’t know what to expect from the menu description, and when the food was put in front of us we were none the wiser. Served in a white ceramic sack all we could see were beautiful flowers poking out the top. Dig your spoon into the bottom and eat whatever you pull out and you find yourself sweet pears, some sort of sponge cake, herbs and a custard like sauce. I don’t know precisely what everything was, but I don’t care, it was tasty and it was fun. A lovely dessert.
Anvil
On to the last full course. At this point I was starting to get emotional, like when I was a child and it got to about 9pm on Christmas Day and you knew it was all coming to an end. Fortunately we were sent off with a bang. This is an absolute L’Enclume staple, and it was easy to see why. A caramel mousse served with miso, apple and spruce sauce. A golden medallion of soft caramel mousse, stamped with the restaurant’s anvil logo and surrounded by a clear sauce with golden flakes in it, the dish looked the part and tasted the part.
Petit Four
We also got 4 petit four at the end. They were all tasty and well executed. We got a mini tiny wafer cone filled with fig leaf ice cream. I was in heaven.
We were also given a quince paste tart. It had a lot of sweetness, possibly too much for our liking, but it was small and we obviously ate it all in one bite anyway.
They also had a homemade chocolate which looked like something you would get out of a fancy box of chocolates. It was called ‘Pine’ and certainly had some pine flavourings in it, with the taste and smell reminiscent of walking through a pine forest.
Finally we had some mint stones inspired by Kendall mint cakes, local to the region. I am not a fan of the mint cakes I ate as a kid, but the L’Enclume variation was fun, had more sweetness and was a nice freshener.
Cheese cart
They had a cheese cart, we were stuffed but couldn’t say no. We tried a couple of the cheeses and really enjoyed them all. Our only, very mild, complaint here was that all the crackers were quite sweet. We would have preferred a more savoury option.
The Wine
You can go for wines by the glass, by the bottle, or select from one of their 3 wine pairing options. Given this was a special occasion, and it isn’t everyday that you get to go to L’Enclume, we decided that we wanted pairings.
The pairing options are Taster (£100), Signature (£150) & Select (£290). We opted for the Signature and it was awesome. We have some really interesting and novel wines, including a Sake, and they all paired fantastically with the food. It was lovely to sit there and not have to think or worry about what we wanted to order, and the sommelier was great. He talked us through the drinks, explained why they had been chosen and overall just really added to the experience.
For those of you who don’t want to go down the pairing route I have no doubt that the talented sommelier will be able to guide you through the wine list and help you choose a great option or two.
Conclusion
L’Enclume is out in the sticks, and it is not a cheap place to go, but my god was it all worth it. Undoubtedly the best place we have ever eaten. I cannot wait to go back.
