You don't go to the Lakes for the weather, you might well go for the scenery and you should definitely go for the food. Across the Lake District there are 13 Michelin starred restaurants, including L'Enclume which has a full clutch of three stars and boasts chef Simon Rogan, whose influence on modern British food has been so profound. We didn't make it to L'Enclume this time around but we did return to Lake Road Kitchen, an old favourite of ours, which recently earned its first star and is situated in the lovely little town of Ambleside, right on the banks of Lake Windermere.
LRK boasts a twelve course tasting menu with matching wine flight, which, it has to be said, quite nearly broke us (we do not have the appetites and stamina that once we did), but was well worth all the Rennies we had to take the next day to appease our digestive systems.
Two of the earliest dishes were also two of the best - Ora king salmon (a farmed salmon from New Zealand) came with the most wonderful, intense tomato and maple dashi, with little pops of freshness from finger limes.
The escargots with parsley miso were pretty special as well, with the kitchen kindly supplying us with some additional bread so as to ensure we could mop up every speck of the wonderful sauce.
Sauces in general were spectacular - from the fruity heat of the hot sauce served with the grilled octopus, to the rich funky depths of the black truffle-laced chicken sauce that came with a piece of steamed halibut.
If I had one ever-so-slight criticism, it was that the desserts were a little underwhelming this visit. Of the three, the stand out was the vanilla and brown sugar cheesecake which tasted remarkable, but we both thought some sort of crunchy element would have added a bit of variation to the texture and elevated it still further. Still, LRK's underwhelming is most other restaurants really bloody good.
It's a shame we were still so full the next morning, as I really struggled with the wonderful breakfast served to us at The Drunken Duck, a gorgeous little boutique hotel / restaurant / pub just ten minutes outside of Ambleside. This cinnamon French toast with blackcurrant compote, yoghurt and pecans was fabulous but I had to abandon it halfway through. We overheard one party complaining about the lack of Full English but I think that the Duck's imaginative approach to breakfast is a welcome change to your standard bacon, eggs and sausage combination.
A very happy start to the Easter festivities.
No comments:
Post a Comment