The best restaurants in the Lake District

Hikers in the Lake District have long set their sights on bagging as many Wainwrights – the mountains mapped out by the legendary Alfred Wainwright in his guidebooks – as they can. But more recently, foodie travellers have been traversing hillsides and country lanes to tick off the region's restaurants. Cumbria now has the most Michelin stars of any UK county outside London (15 in 2024), with chefs inspired by the sheer quality of ingredients from Lakeside farms, fishermen and small growers, and often heading into the woods themselves to forage for mushrooms and herbs. And it's not only fine-dining restaurants making the most of this natural harvest – you can find reasonably priced bistros, cafes and even takeaways punching above their weight. Here are some of our favourites.

The Old Stamp House, Ambleside

Many other restaurants showcase the region’s produce, but the Old Stamp House – squeezed into the basement of the building where William Wordsworth worked as Distributor of Stamps – digs a little deeper into Cumbria’s backstory than most. Ryan Blackburn began cooking early, helping out in his grandfather’s pub before graduating to Restaurant Martin Wishart in Edinburgh and Keswick’s acclaimed Cottage in the Wood, where he first put his signature Herdwick hogget on the menu. If you get the chance, talk to him about the region’s food history – you’ll leave with a real understanding of how Cumbria’s appetite has evolved, from Cumberland sausage to the gingerbread spices introduced by seafaring traders. Tasting menus are presented as journeys around Cumbria, from black pudding bon bons and braised squirrel (grey, of course) brioche to Arctic char cured in seaweed to give an oystery flavour, and an oh-so-dainty pudding of raspberries infused in sweet cicely. One evergreen is the Herdwick hogget, presented three ways – seared loin, slow-cooked shoulder and schnitzel-like breast. Craig Blackburn is something of a cocktail maestro and can point you to concoctions made using gins from local Lakes Distillery and Shed 1, or an English vermouth from Sussex – though there are some very decent ales on the menu, too, from Hawkhead and Unsworth Yard breweries. Ambitious food with real soul.

Address: Old Stamp House, Church Street, Ambleside LA22 0BU
Website: oldstamphouse.com

Forest Side, Grasmere

Since opening in 2014 in a former Victorian hunting lodge, Forest Side has set itself apart from other country-house-hotel restaurants in the area through its sheer dedication to growing as much produce as possible – its kitchen gardens and polytunnels stretch over acres, while mushrooms are spored under the forest canopy. Yorkshire-born chef Paul Leonard – whose career has taken him from Petrus to Gleneagles and The Devonshire Arms – took over from Kevin Tickle (see Heft) when he left in 2019, and has since stamped his own classical style on the menu without shifting the focus away from local produce. If anything he’s tightened the focus, leading chefs into the surrounding fields and fells for ingredients (doubtless bumping into foraging chefs from other restaurants) and plucking more than half his ingredients from the kitchen gardens – while reducing opening hours for a better work-life balance. The eight-course tasting menu (six for lunch) is an evocative journey through Cumbria’s flavours, all presented on a variety of ceramic plates and bowls – the whipped butter on a slab of Lakeland slate – with a leather roll of cutlery to unfurl and choose your weapons. In early summer, highlights were a rich, ramen-style rabbit broth studded with peas and chamomile flowers, a mouthful of barbecued lobster cloaked in a crunchy kale leaf, and a tender roundel of aged Herdwick lamb with a trio of sweetbreads and wild garlic. Dapper Polish sommelier Michal Dumny will escort you through the wine list, which features lesser-known vintages such as peachy, skin-contact Loxarel from Spain, made using Cava grapes. This is squeaky fresh food, singing with flavour, that stays in the mind a long time.

Address: The Forest Side Hotel Keswick Road, Grasmere, Cumbria, LA22 9RN
Website: theforestside.com

Heft, High Newton

Simon Rogan isn’t the only chef turning plates and heads in the Lake District. Cumbrian-born Kevin Tickle worked at L’Enclume before continuing on his own path, which eventually led him to a boarded-up coaching inn on a crossroads in the compact village of High Newton. He opened Heft – the name refers to a particularly independent type of sheep, used to living on the fells in all weathers – in July 2021, not only creating a destination restaurant worth flocking miles for but also returning a much-needed working pub to the village. The menus (three-course lunch, six-course dinner) are culinary haikus, hardly hinting at the prettiness of the dishes. Herdwick sheep often make an appearance, along with Asian-inspired savoury custards and an understandable fondness for the region’s cheese, while some dishes delight in names such as When Daisy Met Bramble (a pudding). In summer, the menu could feature a little bowl of pickled radishes on a bed of ricotta, scattered with nasturtium leaves, soft drapes of cured river trout pepped with gooseberries and a hefty cut of Saddleback pork with peas and garlic leaves – a bright chlorophyll hit of greenery. Sunday lunch adds Cornish sole and chicken schnitzel to the traditional dry-aged beef rib; if you just want a snack, the bar has cheese-and-jalapeno pastries and soup. Go for a leg-stretching walk afterwards, along various bridle paths onto Hampsfell and over a ridge to Cartmel for a pint.

Address: High Newton, Grange-over-Sands LA11 6JH
Website: hefthighnewton.co.uk

Aulis, Cartmel

Not so much a spin-off from L’Enclume as an integral part of its DNA. Set in a former post office – though with its polished concrete surfaces you’d be hard-pressed to imagine its past life – this is where the team tweak, brainstorm and conjure dishes that eventually make it onto the Michelin-starred menu next door. Inspiration is sparked by whatever’s growing on Simon Rogan’s farm: if there’s a glut of 10,000 cabbages, say, the Auslis chefs will figure out what to do with them. The seasonal tasting menu ebbs and flows depending on the ingredients – an amuse bouche pastry of preserved gooseberries with fermented radish and trout mousse, followed by a pretty tartlet of dry-aged Dexter beef, perhaps, with oxalis leaves carefully placed with tweezers, as painstaking as a jeweller assembling a diamond brooch. The nearest it got to a main course was a small pithivier of Lake District game – roe deer, mallard and wood pigeon – with oh-so-thin pastry that’s blow-torched in front of you and presented with honey-glazed pear and a twist of celeriac capped with truffle. Six stools by the counter place guests right by the action – this is a brilliant chance to talk to the Michelin-star chefs and sommeliers working just a few inches away.

Address: Cavendish Street, Cartmel, Grange-over-Sands LA11 6PZ
Website: lenclume.co.uk/aulis

Source at Gilpin Hotel, Windermere

Almost a world to itself, with its acres of grounds and Scandi-style spa cabins, Gilpin is a place to stretch out and spend time in, chewing the cud like the bobble-haired alpacas that amble around in the nearby field. I say cud, what I mean is a dainty mouthful of pale-but-interesting turbot and cauliflower, perhaps, glazed in sake and speckled with caviar. Or a lobster tail and peanut bisque, arranged on a white plate facing a curl of condensed lettuce braised in chicken stock. You get the picture. Source was unveiled in 2023, the successor to HRiSHi, which closed after chef Hrishikesh Desai departed after eight years at the hotel. Under Ollie Bridgwater, formerly of The Fat Duck, Source has retained its Michelin star, for menus that showcase the chef’s Fat Duck chutzpah: witty, artful takes on foodie icons such as the Reuben sandwich, using sloooow-braised short rib and a sourdough foam rather than bread, and a Parker House roll flavoured with wild garlic and glazed with honey. The sushi rice pudding brings together miso caramel and sake ice cream; guests are greeted with Wonka-ish pop-in-the-mouth gin-and-tonic sweets. You can choose from a 10-course tasting menu or shorter, three-course one – but why scrimp on the experience? Next door is the hotel’s second restaurant, Spice, its menu a finessed journey through Asia.

Address: Crook Road, Windermere LA23 3NF
Website: thegilpin.co.uk

Rothay Manor, Ambleside

There can be few finer places to begin a dinner in the Lake District than on the lawn at Rothay Manor – a G&T tinkling in the glass, magnolia tree in blossom and the Regency-era white concoction of the hotel rising up reassuringly behind. All you need is a Cecil Beaton to capture the moment. In a landscape of country-house hotels, this is one of the best, partly because of its restaurant. After chef Dan McGeorge left in 2023 after six years at the helm, Derbyshire-born Aaron Lawrence stepped in, swapping out the soy sauce and dashi for chicken velouté and lobster bisque: Lawrence is steeped in Cumbrian food seasonality, having worked at The Samling and Gilpin, and pairs French technique with ingredients such as Wye Valley asparagus, mushrooms, turnips and venison. And the ubiquitous Herdwick lamb, of course, which appears in a stand-out starter with a crisp potato spiral holding morels and fresh wild garlic. Lemon sole, meanwhile, is taken off the bone, brined and then layered and steamed in a terrine mould with scallop mousse and crab meat – a considered, beautifully realised dish that sums up the chef’s intent here.

Address: Borrans Road, Ambleside LA22 0EH
Website: rothaymanor.co.uk

The Yan at Broadrayne, Grasmere

Just the sort of place you want to settle down in, pulling bracken from your hair after half a day spent scrambling up Helm Crag or Silver Howe. This former sheep farm stays close to its roots, all slate floors and vintage timber and nothing but fields all around, with frequent appearances by brown-fleeced Herdwicks, both on the menu and in the artworks that decorate the bistro. Ignore the surfeit of ‘Yan’ puns on the menu: this is superior comfort food, wrangled by head chef Will Manly along with Georgina King, formerly of the Lake Road Kitchen, who joined the team in 2022 with sommelier husband Pete (his cocktails pack a punch, try the Wolftown Negroni using local gin). Highlights include the bacon chop marinated in black treacle, fish tacos, and dig-in-deep plates such as naan and curried beef brisket, loaded with paneer and lentil dahl, and the classic shepherd’s pie, topped by a curl of local charcuterie. Items like the baked brie may not be pushing any foodie boundaries, but it’s bloody lovely Darling Howe brie from nearby Torpenhow, drizzled with truffle oil and capped with red onion. For pudding, the mulled-wine rice pudding is a belly-warming treat. Good-natured food in a boisterous atmosphere – great for a family pitstop.

Address: Broadrayne Farm, Grasmere, Ambleside LA22 9RU
Website: theyan.co.uk

Black Bull, Sedberg

Sedbergh is just 30 minutes’ drive from Windermere but this is where the Lake District becomes Yorkshire, blurring the lines… just as chef Nina Matsunaga does with her food, adding Asian influences to ingredients gathered from the two counties and Lancashire – the ‘neck of England’ as partner James Rafcliffe calls it. The couple met at Trove in Manchester, then moved to Sedbergh and The Three Hares in 2014; the Bull followed four years later. The former coaching inn has been customised with dark walls and black and lipstick-red banquettes, vintage cleavers here, sprigs of dried honesty there; a sequence of dining spaces opening up from the main bar with bedrooms above. This still feels like a pub, though, with no-nonsense service and locals leaning on the counter with a jug of Fell Brewery ale in hand. James has a passion for natural wine and a druid’s eye when it comes to foraging, plucking hen of the woods shrooms, lovage, ramsons, cobnuts and blackberries for Nina to create her hedgerow cuisine – pickling fruit and making garum and miso sake sauce for dishes such as chalk stream trout – everyone’s favourite fish right now – with caviar and puffed rice for texture. Mackerel is given a chilli kick; lamb tartare mixed with kimchi, and Chinese cabbage strewn with crisp beetroot. There’s a seven-course tasting menu, but also Monday pie night. And outside is one the region’s most characterful small towns, with bookshops a-plenty – easy to make a weekend of it.

Address: 44 Main Street, Sedbergh LA10 5BL
Website: theblackbullsedbergh.co.uk

Homeground, Ambleside

I’ve been willing to queue for just two places in the Lake District: the Little Ice Cream Shop in Hawkshead, for a cone of their delectable gingerbread ice cream, and this café from Rich and Jane Metcalfe, for a rib-sticking brunch before going wild swimming in the River Rothay. With its white tongue-and-groove ceiling, slate feature wall and framed prints (I like the ‘What She Said’ one), Homeground is walk-in-only-no-bookings place, whose young team bounce around the tables like pinballs, bearing plates that wouldn’t look out of place in Darlinghurst. Food arrives on earthenware plates or in the pan, piping hot – hash browns of almost bhaji-like crunchiness, pepped with curls of pickled onions; a hogget hash with asparagus, splodged with dollops of anchovy aioli. Big flavours, decent portions. Recent additions include a ‘sandwich’ reminiscent of Max’s Sandwich Shop in London – a brioche bun bursting with chicken-thigh satay, ponzu salad and udon noodles. Plenty of prime vegginess, too, from pumpkin fritters to cornbread with field mushrooms and asparagus benedict. Here’s a challenge: try walking out past the line of cakeage on the ash-hewn counter – peanut butter and jam bake, strawberry and clotted cream blondie – without succumbing to temptation.

Address: Main Road, Windermere LA23 1DX
Website: homegroundcafe.co.uk

Rattle Ghyll, Ambleside

Alec and Claire McCarthy’s high-street deli and eco-minded refill station was born out of a café with the same name: after starting a family, the couple decided to pivot just before lockdown – keeping many of the same vegetarian dishes on the takeaway menu (all in compostable packing), such as frittatas, quiches and Buddha bowls, along with smoky paprika hummus and bean burrito, and rather good scones loaded with raspberry and vanilla jam from Hawkshead Relish. Just the spot to pick up provisions for a lakeside picnic, along with take-homes from the deli shelves – favourites include St James cheese from the Holker estate, Keswick Ketchup and gin from the Lakes Distillery. The pair are keen outdoor enthusiasts, too, so feel free to pick up any hiking or wild swimming tips too. And next door is Fred’s Bookshop, great for reads from local authors.

Address: Rattle Ghyll Fine Food and Deli, Rydal Road, Ambleside LA22 9BS
Website: rattleghyll.com

Rogan & Co, Cartmel

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Simon Rogan owns the whole of Cartmel: just around the corner from L’Enclume, in a similarly thick-timbered medieval cottage next to the little River Eae, this is the chef’s take on a neighbourhood bistro. Menus are deeply creative, obsessing with teasing out as much flavour as possible from squeaky fresh ingredients – from a bowl of chorizo-like lamb-belly croquettes with pea-and-mint soufflé to meadowsweet-dusted rhubarb – and pairing ingredients such as hazelnut whey to a mushroom dish, pine to asparagus and crab. And while it may ‘only’ have the one star, it does do breakfast, and children’s portions. While it’s certainly easier to bag a table here than its more famous neighbour, this doesn’t feel like a ‘second best’ option.

Address: Devonshire House, Devonshire Square, Cartmel, Grange-over-Sands, LA11 6QD
Website: roganandco.co.uk

Kysty, Ambleside

The name means ‘fussy’ in Cumbrian dialect, but that’s more a reflection on the insistence on local ingredients than its mood: this is the more relaxed, café-sized sibling to the Michelin-starred Old Stamp House across the road. So there are still set menus and macaron-style amuse bouches and wine pairings, but they’re short and to the point – easy to alight here for lunch without taking the whole afternoon off. The creamily frothy shrimp and spiced cauliflower velouté is something of a signature; other dishes might include tender pink slices of wood pigeon arranged on rye sourdough, miso-pepped roast hispi cabbage, and a perfectly cooked fillet of river trout with mussels and celeriac patties – puddings such as sea buckthorn curd with a frozen shard of white chocolate ice cream are light but delicious. A lovely, quite affordable snapshot of where Cumbria’s food scene is right now.

Address: 3/4 Cheapside, Ambleside, LA22 0AB
Website: kysty.co.uk

North Pie Company, Ambleside

Something of an interloper from Manchester, the North Pie Co arrived in Ambleside in 2017, opening in a slate-walled former café with a menu of pastry-topped dishes perfected by Neil Broomfield over many years of selling at farmers’ markets. Broomfield, a former policeman (no, there’s no Irish stew option), opened his first pie-and-mash hatch in Altrincham’s Market House, with another café opening at Manchester’s Kampus in 2022. Inspired by the Scottish pies of his youth, they’re all straight-sided and baked in bespoke dishes, made from an all-butter pastry that crisps up nicely. As for fillings, the team keep it traditional but source quality ingredients for slow-cooked options such as the favourite roast chicken – crispy skin and all, with white sauce and roast onions – and Lancashire cheese and onion (topped with nutmeggy panko crumbs). Look out for guest appearances by the daal gobi pie, with marinated roast cauliflower. Each is matched with a beer (mostly from Lakes Brew Co) that you can take away or devour on stools outside in summer.

Address: The Great North Pie co, Unit 2 The Courtyard, Rothay Rd, Ambleside LA22 0EE
Website: greatnorthpie.co

The Dog and Gun Inn, Skelton

A few years ago, The Dog & Gun – edge of the Lakes, just a few miles north of Penrith – was the sort of wooden-beamed pub you’d plot a country walk around, assured of a foaming pint of something local and a bag of crisps after your exertions. Labradors panting by the fire; a few farmers staring into the mid-distance; a tobacco-hued bar that Withnail & I might have chanced upon for the first few ales of the day. Then in 2017 it was bought by Cumbrian-born Ben Queen-Fryer and his wife Lizzie, who gave it a lick of paint and started serving food so good that you’ll skip the country walk and come straight here as fast as you can. The Michelin Guide inspectors did just that, and awarded it one star in 2022. This still feels like a proper pub, though, with wooden floorboards and lots of reassuringly brown furniture – along with a harp in one corner should you want to make like a well-fed cherub and play the heavenly strings. Dogs are actively encouraged in the back bar (guns, however, are generally frowned upon). Ben draws on the local vocabulary of ingredients, with fish and scallops from Maryport, ceps and puffballs from a forager – used in a risotto – and butter and cheddar from Torpenhow (unusually, pronounced Tra-penner), for the pin-up starter of cheese soufflé with black truffle. Another favourite is the raviolo, made from pork simmered for a couple of hours in milk, which is then used as the sauce. Ben likes to move regular dishes forward: the ‘fish ‘n’ chips’ option – Dover sole with fries and a vermouth-butter sauce for dipping – has become steamed turbot topped by a single langoustine, served with smoked potato tempura and leeks. For pudding, there’s usually a damson soufflé with a blob of frangipani ice cream (a lovely flavour match), and a chocolate torte so shiny you can almost see your face in it.

Address: Skelton, Penrith CA11 9SE
Website: dogandgunskelton.co.uk

L’Enclume, Cartmel

The anvil that gives the restaurant its name says it all. Graft away; keep hammering with passion and consideration and keep the ideas flowing, and you may – just may – win three Michelin stars. That happened to Simon Rogan and his team in 2022, two decades after the chef arrived (almost accidentally) in the Cumbrian village of Cartmel and set about transforming British food. While farm-to-fork cooking wasn’t a new idea 20 years ago, Rogan made a mission of it, founding Our Farm nearby that now grows almost all of L’Enclume’s ingredients and dictates the menu. Over the years, Rogan’s played with experimental, molecular techniques (early dishes included ‘Cubism in foie gras’ and ‘tadpole of myrrh’) but in recent years his approach has settled down, using the plant-forward menu to showcase the finest British ingredients But lunches and dinners are still epic theatrical productions, with menus resembling the title sequence from an MCU movie and each dish introduced by one of the team. A 16-course dinner might begin with simple strips of pine-cured trout on a pebble-like ceramic and end with tiny marigold ice-cream cones and mint chocolates disguised as stones – in between are a flurry of dulse, beetroot, sea buckthorn and cobnut cream. Asian-style custards, brimful with umami, are a favourite, as is the riff on bread-and-butter pudding, capped with a snowfall of Berkswell, while the signature dessert of caramel mousse, fired by miso, arrives embossed with an anvil. They are all beautiful works in miniature, seemingly assembled by the toymakers’ elves while no one was looking, and eaten using hand-forged cutlery fired by young blacksmith Alex Pole. As for the room itself, there’s an almost gastropub atmosphere and no white tablecloths – with none of the puckered reverence of Michelin cliché. Footballers may helicopter in every so often but it also draws local regulars from Cumbria and the north. Just in case you didn’t realise he was French, head sommelier Valentin Mouillard has grown the sort of moustache that would stop Salvador Dalí in his tracks. He’s the grandson of a Jura winemaker, so has grape juice in his veins and can arrange a wine pairing – go for it, this could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. What’s also remarkable is the way Rogan has transformed the village of Cartmel (the sort of place you wouldn’t blink to see a couple of Cavalier soldiers lounging on the corner), adding bedrooms in various medieval buildings and opening a bistro (Rogan & Co), a test kitchen (Aulis) and a kitchen shop – only Rick Stein in Padstow can claim to have created such a legacy.

Address: Cavendish Street, Cartmel, Cumbria LA11 6QA
Website: lenclume.co.uk

Langdale Chase, Windermere

Here’s a place to press your nose against the window, looking out at the cinematic views of Windermere outside – the Ambleside cruise boat chugging past, waterbirds skimming the surface. The hotel reopened in 2023 after a year’s renovation that brightened up the interiors, chucked out the chintz, and refined its dining credentials. Under chef Michael Cole the restaurant, set in a contemporary wing, aims high, with amuse bouches of savoury custards (very Rogan) and creative flourishes such as a beetroot starter that resembles patisserie, served with a spoon of horseradish ice cream, and a honeyish milk tart that’s as pretty as a buttercup. At the heart of the cooking here, though, are ingredients plucked from the Cumbrian fields and forests, whether that venison (carpaccio, with leaves of caramelised parsnip) or guinea fowl (a highlight, stuffed with truffle and tarragon mousse and ladled with glazed maitake mushrooms). With its unimpeachable Windermere views, the Langdale is arguably better for lunch, though dinner means you can dawdle by the fire in the bar beforehand, over a cocktail stirred by the ambitious young Jake (for a lighter meal, the informal bar menu here has Cumbrae oysters, cheese soufflé and a very covetable lobster tempura roll, though the latter at a price that would make Peter Rabbit run for cover).

Address: Ambleside Road, Ecclerigg, Windermere LA23 1LW
Website: langdalechase.co.uk

Henrock, Windermere

As the only one of Simon Rogan’s restaurants that’s not in Cartmel, this is allowed to be a little different. So while much produce comes from the Rogan farm, it also forages a little further afield, adding olive oil and lemon juice to the larder, and bringing in Asian influences inspired by travels and the chef’s Hong Kong outpost. As to be expected, plates resemble still lifes, from pre-dinner tartlets to mussels in a rockpool of verjus and cream, with a tapioca crisp for dipping, and vegetable-forward dishes that demonstrate the holy alliance of aubergine and miso, all arriving on slates and handmade ceramics. The white Pekin duck is something of a blushing star turn, spot-painted with beetroot with a confit-duck croquette; the eponymous amuse bouche makes clever use of pureed chicken in the wood mushroom with an egg yolk, to be scooped out of a shell. Allow enough time for a pre-dinner cocktail from head barman Andreas Grammatikopoulos, who will enthusiastically explain his outlook, which covers zero waste – the Zero Fashioned used caramelised banana skins – and Greek influences such as Greek yoghurt foam and pine-fresh mastixa spirit. As for the wines, this is one of the best lists in the region so best to just go with whatever the sommelier recommends – such as a peachy Grundstein Gruner Veltliner 2020 to accompany the starter, a punchy Double Canyon cabernet sauvignon from Washington State for the duck, and a strawberryish Alessandro Viola rosé for dessert.

Address: Linthwaite House Hotel, Crook Ln, Bowness-on-Windermere, Windermere LA23 3JA
Website: henrock.co.uk

The Copper Pot, Ambleside

Ambleside can get just a wee bit crowded in the summer, but it’s always bemusing to see how few people wander off the main drag to find local favourites like The Copper Pot. This was opened by Anna Morton and her family (father David’s the barista, sister Lisa the kitchen porter) a few years ago, who refurbed it themselves using bare-filament and copper pendants, simple wooden tables and white chairs, with cascading foliage against the dry-stone walls. An open fire and sun-trap terrace cover all weather bases. It’s the place for daytime grazing (though handy for takeaway cortados, using coffee roasted just up the road), from the full Cumbrian or pollen-dusted granola via loaded chips and vegan burgers to afternoon tea and cakes – all the latter made by Anna herself, including chocolate stout, gluten-free Sicilian orange and almond, and various sponges with fulsome dairy-cream stripes. Espresso Martinis and other brunch cocktails too, for those who aren’t considering a morning hike into the fells.

Address: Church Street, Ambleside LA22 0BU
Website: copper-pot.co.uk