Recent eats: an Ambleside edition

One of the lovely things about living in Leeds is that not only are the Yorkshire Dales practically on our doorstep, but we are also surprisingly close to the Lake District. A mere two hour drive sees us right in the heart of one of the most beautiful, albeit dampest, areas of England.

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.

Foodie abroad: a return to Lake Road Kitchen

I have a quote on the tip of my tongue about never going back but I’ve Googled it and apparently Never Go Back is the name of a Jack Reacher film. I don’t think I’ve seen it and it certainly doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I’d usually quote. Anyway. I’ve been musing a bit about nostalgia versus novelty recently. I often wonder if I’m too much governed by the former (familiarity, safety) versus the latter (the new, the unknown) and whether that is a good or bad thing. It’s especially pertinent at the moment; like many of us, I find myself still living in a state of heightened anxiety after the events of the past year and my instinct is to grope for comfort blankets when perhaps what I need is a hefty kick up the arse.

A long winded (and navel gazing) way of saying we found ourselves in the Lakes for a few days as my parents invited us to share their holiday apartment and , to say thank you, we wanted to take them out for dinner. Should we revisit an old favourite or go somewhere new? We opted to return to Lake Road Kitchen, a restaurant we visited and loved back in (shockingly) 2017. We felt fairly certain that we would have a good meal - the lamb that we had five years ago remains, probably, the best I have ever eaten - but there was a slight sense of trepidation that it wouldn’t quite live up to our memories.

Reader, if we loved it in 2017 we were blown away by it in 2021 and we are already plotting when we can return (it will not be another five years). What an absolute gem of a place. We had a twelve course tasting menu and not a dud note - although the rest of the party felt a beef and onion broth was not quite up to the standard of the rest (I rather enjoyed it). While the focus remains on local Cumbrian produce, I definitely felt that the chef’s sphere of influences had widened which made for some seriously impressive, and sometimes surprising, taste combinations. Alongside an absolutely flawless handling of ingredients, there was so much to love that I don’t know what to highlight.

I could wax lyrical about pretty much every course and, interestingly, I think that all four of us had a different favourite. For me, ever a sweet tooth, I adored the dessert end of the menu and am tempted to say that a Brillat-Savarin baked cheesecake with raspberry and liquorice jam and raspberry sorbet was the pinnacle. The cheesecake was so light in texture, not claggy as baked cheesecakes have a tendency to be, and it was almost savoury to taste which worked incredibly well with the sour sweet fruit. Even though I was reaching capacity by the time it was served, the moment it was finished I wanted to eat it again. 

But if the menu ended with a bang, then it has to be said it started on one too with a number of “snack” courses including the crunchiest fried chicken in the history of the world and D’s personal favourite - a deep fried prawn toast with king prawn, prawn mousse and garlic butter. This occupied the space somewhere between a prawn toast and a Kiev, which might sound odd but totally worked. D spent most of the remainder of the evening trying (unsuccessfully) to persuade the waitress to bring him another one.

Also, it would be remiss of me not to mention the main course pork - slow cooked then finished on the barbecue and served with the most amazing wild garlic and caper sauce. Plates may have been licked and bones were certainly gnawed by the gentleman in the party. This is a kitchen that knows how to handle meat.

When you pick an old favourite over something new, there is always a risk of missing out but, to be honest, I can’t envisage any scenario where we missed out here. I cannot praise Lake Road Kitchen enough, and my sentiments were echoed by the whole party. We will be back there soon and if ever you, gentle Reader, should find yourself in the vicinity of Ambleside then I urge you to try and nab a table. 

Lake Road Kitchen

Lake Road

Ambleside 

Cumbria 

LA22 0AD

2017 - the year in review

And so, Christmas has been and gone and with it the final hurrah of 2017.  I spent most of the year’s dying days snuggled up at home doing little more than watching crap on Netflix and eating chocolate biscuits.  I weighed myself this morning; up 5lbs from the beginning of December which I am quite peaceful about considering that we abandoned 5:2 and any pretence of moderation right at the start of the month.  I am hoping to get most, if not all, of it shifted by the end of January.  Today sees me on my first fast day since…well, weeks ago, and there are even rumours that the Treadmill in the Garage will be grinding back to life very shortly.  As ever, I will keep you apprised.

Before we venture forth into 2018, as always, it is worth having a quick look back.  Firstly, weight loss and health matters – I committed to 5:2 at the start of the year on the basis that:

a) I still need to lose weight

b) Weight Watchers did not agree with me anymore – the constant counting and measuring and weighing and planning was, ultimately, not doing my mental health any good and

c)  Any other formal “diet plan” would likely be just as bad. 

5:2 seemed like the answer to the problem, in that it would require fierce commitment for 2 days of the week, but the rest of the time I could pootle along as I pleased. 

Well, it has worked in the sense that I am 2 stone down over the course of the year.  It’s not what you would call an amazing result, but it is a result nonetheless, and given the number of weeks where we’ve sacked off one or both fasts for reasons both spurious and genuine, I am pleased.  I have genuinely eaten well on non-fast days – aiming for moderation rather than restriction has really helped me develop a peaceful relationship with the food that I eat for the first time in my adult life. 

And talking of eating, D and I have agreed that some of our favourite ever meals were consumed in 2017.  We were lucky enough to visit several amazing restaurants and to pick a favourite is very, very difficult. 

The stand-out, in the end, is The Raby Hunt, which we visited at the beginning of November.  It has two Michelin stars and it is not London based – the conjuction of these two facts do tend to imply quality – but we have learned that Michelin stars do not always make for the best eating or for the best dining experiences (in our opinion.  Clearly not in the opinion of the mysterious Michelin inspectors who I fondly imagine cruising the country’s dining scene in pinstripe suits).  Raby Hunt, which I wrote about here, is just absolutely fabulous.  And the dish of razor clam and celeriac and almonds is probably, probably the best thing that I ate all year.

Razor clam and celeriac at The Raby Hunt

But there are honourable mentions to be made too: the thought of the lamb at Lake Road Kitchen in Ambleside still makes my mouth water all these months later.  And we had a last minute contender in the form of scallop with fermented celeriac at TheBlack Swan at Oldstead just the other week.  It’s rather odd – I didn’t even think that I liked celeriac that much, but in expert hands, it turns out that it is rather sublime.  I probably need to cook with it a bit more.  We also absolutely adored 64 Degrees in Brighton – another superlative lamb dish, this one served with gochujang.

Lamb at Lake Road Kitchen

Dessert of the year probably, again, goes to one of the offerings at The Raby Hunt, but I can’t help but remember with very great fondness the fabulous miso caramel ice cream that we ate at Skosh in York.

Miso caramel ice cream at Skosh

Our own home cooking has, naturally, encountered new influences and ideas throughout the year (gochujang and sushi rice are now both permanent fixtures in our storecupboard), but I honestly think that one of the nicest things that I made was this summery broad bean dip.  I am already looking forward to broad bean season rolling around again so that I can make this dip by the pint.

Broad bean dip at home

We managed to make a bit more use of our extensive recipe book library, but want to ramp this up for 2018 and are aiming to cook a new dish at least once a week.  What with that and plans to visit (among other places) Joro in Sheffield and Where The Light Gets In in Stockport, I think 2018 will shape up to be pretty damn fine itself.

Lake Road Kitchen, Ambleside

Great cooking is, in my opinion, an art form – possibly unique in the fact that to be truly great it has to work across nearly all of our senses at any one time. Thus it is that when you are trying to assess an excellent meal, you have a certain amount of responsibility to try and separate the subjective from the objective. Except that when it comes to Lake Road Kitchen, I’m having real trouble because I loved it so much. It was one of those occasions where I felt that the chef and I obviously shared a sensibility with regards to food which meant that, with the exception of one dish which happened to be based around an ingredient that I don’t much like (sweetcorn), I adored everything – and even the exception I appreciated and admired.

The owner and head chef James Cross, as appears to be de rigueur these days, did a stint at Noma and the influence is exceedingly apparent: the ingredients are as local as possible with many coming from the restaurant’s own kitchen garden, others foraged from the local countryside (which, given that the place is in the heart of the Lake District is both beautiful and bountiful). The restaurant’s interior has a stripped back, Scandi feel – clean lines, pale colours, plenty of wood. But although the dishes often appeared to be similarly simple and even ascetic in their presentation, this was entirely deceptive and most ate as well as any food you will find in this country at the moment.

Hard to pick highlights, but I would walk back to Ambleside to eat the slow cooked octopus again. I have never had octopus like it – the slow cooking had enhanced the firm, meaty quality of the flesh before it was brought to life by a robust searing on the outside to give it texture and smoke. The fermented wild garlic puree accompaniment had us both swiping our finger around the plates to catch every drop.

I need to mention the lamb as well because I have genuinely never, ever had lamb like it. It was stunning. Herdwick, a local breed had been dry aged for 50 days (a technique more commonly applied to beef) to give a depth of flavour that I have simply never encountered before, not to mention a texture as silky as butter. The couple at the table next to us sent it back for being undercooked and, yes, the rack turned up at the table far rarer than is, perhaps, commonly seen but one mouthful would have confirmed to anyone that not a further second of cooking was required. It was utterly magical.

I’m often a bit anti modern puddings, being firmly of the opinion that the sticky toffee has yet to be bettered. But even here I was to be confounded – the buttermilk pannacotta with blackberries and foraged herbs was a perfect marriage of dreamily soft, barely set cream and the deep, darkly sour punch of fruit with sorrel, lemon verbena and chervil adding a completely new note that spoke of the autumn and the damp, delicate scent of the hedgerows. This almost has me convinced that pannacotta is a dessert worth ordering.

Lake Road Kitchen are only open Wednesday – Sunday and they only offer a tasting menu (five or eight courses with cheese supplement available). The menus change to make the best of the ingredients on offer, although we were told that they keep a note of what customers have eaten to ensure that when they return they get an entirely different set of dishes. This strikes me as above and beyond the call of duty, but is in keeping with the charming and extremely attentive service that we received throughout out time there. I honestly can’t recommend this place enough – the Lake District has always been somewhere to go to seek out culinary gems (L’Enclume, anyone?) and this is one of the shiniest that I have encountered so far.

Lake Road Kitchen
Lake Road
Ambleside
LA22 0AD
015394 22012