l’Enclume, Cartmel, Lake District, England

And now to the highlight of my recent trip to Cumbria, and one of the places on my Wish List for a long time!

L’Enclume is the brainchild of the chef, Simon Rogan, and is a Michelin starred restaurant situated in Cartmel, a picture postcard village in the Lake District, which also offers the added attraction of Cartmel Priory Church which dates from the 12th century, and thanks to the Friends of Cartmel Priory, is an active and well maintained place of welcome and worship.

L’Enclume is a restaurant with rooms – and apart from the main house which has four rooms, there are eight others in various houses dotted around the village. We stayed in the main stone house, where the rooms are comfortable and unpretentious and offered all the comforts of home. A particulary nice touch was the fresh milk for tea or coffee housed in a miniature frig in each room. Some have sitting areas as well, and the prices range from £99 to £159 a night, including a first-class breakfast which includes organic porridge, poached haddock, kippers from the Isle of Man, fresh egg dishes, freshly squeezed orange juice and a delicious fruit salad. During the low season there are some very good special offers on the rooms.

Now to the main feature – dinner in the restaurant. The dining-room itself is very simple in style and some of the tables are located in a conservatory overlooking the garden and a babbling brook. The restaurant is run by a charming French Maitre D., Frank, who has been living in the U.K. for over twenty years and says he will be staying! The staff are young and multicultural – we had both a Canadian and a French waitress, who seemed to love their job and in particular the food that they were serving.

There are two menus in the evening – one at £69 and one at £79, with 9 or 12 courses respectively!! But don’t panic – the portions are well-proportioned and we had absolutely no trouble getting through the 9 course one. I have decided that the best thing to do is to attach the menu to this review, so that you get a real idea of what was on offer. Presentation was superb – the first course was oysters disguised as pebbles nestling in a basket of real pebbles -and the courses ran the gamut from sole, to lobster, to venison to duck breast, plus the wonderful local vegetables and herbs, which Simon Rogan raises on his nearby farm or picks locally. And one of the highlights for me were the crystallised fennel balls which exploded in your mouth as you bit into them!

Of course there was a carefully selected wine list and after glasses of champagne offered by the house, we chose a 2010 Vouvray Clos de Rougemont, which in fact went well with all of the dishes.

A three-course lunch menu  costing £39  is  available during the week

The meal was everything I could have wished for – and an absolutely incredible experience. It may have been a long way to go, especially from France, but worth every minute of the trip, not only from a gastronomic point of view but also aesthetically, as the scenery in Cumbria and the Lake District is just so beautiful.

So if you have a chance to go to L’Enclume don’t miss it!