We continue with our travels from last year, so no cookbook this week, instead, we had an exceptional meal at L’enclume in Cartmell. The meal started even before we got to the restaurant with a visit to their farm. Here they grow much of the produce used in L’enclume and all across Simon Rogan’s restaurants. The farm was amazing, and the farmer who took us around was so knowledgeable. We tasted flowers that tasted like apples and leaves that tasted like lemons – a veritable Willy Wonka’s factory of the natural world. After the farm, we headed to the restaurant, where we had an amazing seven-course tasting menu with matching wines and Lou and the kids had a matched soft drink flight with theirs. Every course had elements we’d seen growing that morning, and the freshness of the flavours was just wonderful.
The menu was:
Native lobster and gooseberry tart, Cherry Belle radish, rosehips
– Fritter of Duroc pig and smoked eel, lovage and fermented sweetcorn
– Sourdough with some of our cultured butter.
– Passandra Cucumbers compressed in calamint, Raw scallop from Orkney and pickled elderflower
– Duncan cabbage cooked in buttermilk and grilled over Binchotan, horseradish and Welsh truffles.
– Cornish cod, our kale leaves, Smoked pike perch roe and gooseberry
– Texel Cross lamb loin roasted on the bone. White Lisbon onions and pineapple sage
– Sheep’s yoghurt and Malwina strawberries, Farm sorrel and sweet cicely
– “Anvil”, Caramel mousse with our miso, apple and spruce
– Mint Stones, honey pastilles
So many amazing courses and impossible to pick a favourite.

Here’s the link to this fabulous restaurant that secured a third Michelin star just after we visited last year! https://www.lenclume.co.uk