L’Enclume
Cavendish Street Cartmel LA11 6PZ
This place is in deepest rural Cumbria, but chef Simon Rogan really has earned the Michelin stars that adorn his flagship restaurant-with-rooms in Cartmel by creating simply amazing food, served in a chic conversion of what was once the medieval village blacksmith’s. Beautifully presented menus run through a series of searingly original dishes, with old English herbs, hedgerow flowers, mousses, foams and jellies much in evidence. We say "menus", but they've done away with such things – preferring instead to "cook whatever is available to us at that moment in time". And as there's a personal six-acre farm nearby dedicated to growing produce for the restaurant, you can count on searingly fresh seasonality in every artfully constructed dish. It’s an approach that has garlanded awards by the bucketload (number-one restaurant in the Good Food Guide, for one), and lavish guest rooms boast the same signature style and attention to detail.
