L’Enclume
Cavendish Street, Cartmel, Cumbria, LA11 6QA
Tel: +44 (0) 1539 536 362
Internet: www.lenclume.co.uk
GPS: 54.201850, -2.953791
The Menu:
Toasted seed, salted mullet and fermented gooseberry tart, juices infused with woodruff
Fritter of Duroc pig and smoked eel, lovage, fermented sweetcorn
Corra Linn pudding caramelised in birch sap, stout vinegar, aged Corra Linn
Steamed crab with pickled beach roses, horseradish emulsion, fermented celtuce, rosehip
Ibis celeriac roasted in yeast oil, buttermilk, smoked pike perch roe
Fuseau artichoke, crosnes and Welsh truffle, chestnut, Doddington, fermented pear
Gairloch langoustine, braised pulses from last summer, Duncan cabbage, fennel pollen, smoked kombu
English mushrooms and seaweed custard, sugar kelp, braised tendons, bone marrow
West coast skate with dulse and grilled mussels, purple Azur kohlrabi, coastal vegetables, elderflower
Green Harp spinach and duck offal, ramson, Red King Edward potatoes, geranium
West Country duck, Boltardy beetroot, Kalibos cabbage, herbs and seeds, elderberry vinegar
Frozen Tunworth cheese, malt crumb, jostaberry, lemon thyme
Preserved penny cherries, dried herbs, sheep’s milk, chamomile
“Anvil”, a caramel mousse with miso, apple, spruce
Crown Prince squash, pine cone, tart, mint stones
The Wine:
Domaine Belargus Anjou Blanc Bonnes Blanches 2019
The first thing you will have to do when dining at L’Enclume is find somewhere to park. This is, of course, presuming you haven’t had Jeeves drop you off at the door. If you lacked that level of foresight, you are going to have to find a spot somewhere on these country lanes in which to squeeze the Bentley. And this can be more of a challenge than you might imagine, as the lanes emanating from the village of Cartmel are narrow and – unsurprisingly, given the popularity of this picturesque spot – regularly crammed with cars.
The good news is, once you have bagged your place – two circuits of the village and I found one, just next to the stone wall surrounding Cartmel Priory, if you’re interested – that will be the end of your fretting. Prepare yourself for a gastronomic experience to rival and perhaps eclipse any others.
L’Enclume is home to chef Simon Rogan, and it has been for as long as I can remember. Well, in truth he set up here with partner Penny Tapsell in 2002, so a ‘mere’ 24 years ago. Although, as evinced by yesterday’s Cellar Raid report on four wines from Domaine Vacheron, my memory is fallible, so maybe it really is “as long as I can remember.” The building in which the restaurant is housed was once home to the village blacksmith, a nod to which includes a large anvil perched in one alcove (and enclume is French for anvil – you see, drinking wine and dining at top restaurants really can be educational).
My awareness of L’Enclume thus grew from 2002. Rogan picked up three Michelin stars, starting with the first in 2005, and then a second in 2013. By this time the restaurant was already on my “maybe I can dine there one day” list, not so much because of these starry accolades, but because people whose palates I trust had crossed the smithy’s threshold and had come away impressed. The reports were glowing. But it can be a bit of a trek from the Scottish Lowlands to the Lake District, and I decided a few years ago to focus on restaurants on my doorstep in Edinburgh and East Lothian, finding my own gastronomic way, rather than chasing other diner’s recommendations.
But then Rogan received the glittering accolade of a third star, in 2022, which pushed the restaurant back to the forefront of my mind. And, as luck would have it, this year a non-milestone birthday had me trekking to the Lake District for a celebratory weekend.
The question of where to dine drifted through my mind, although only for a microsecond before I came up with the answer.
A reservation was made.
Having parked the automobile (which might, or might not, be a Bentley, you decide) we walked round to L’Enclume. The restaurant is often described as discreet, the smithy being one more grey limestone building in a village of many. Of course, that’s only true if you somehow miss the huge sign – complete with yet another anvil – on the exterior wall.
I confess I was not quite sure what to expect when I crossed the threshhold of L’Enclume. Some sort of pre-meal multiple-choice assessment paper, perhaps, to assess whether my culinary knowledge was up to scratch? Or perhaps a collar and ears check, to ascertain that the former was suitably starched, and the latter washed sometime during the prior week? And surely some sort of guard of honour, two lines of waiters, in tail coats and white gloves, crossing baguettes over our heads? Or a mariachi band, perhaps?
I confess, I had my fingers crossed for the last one.
At the very least, I expected formality. I donned a jacket. The truth is, I need not have bothered. Somehow I ended up the best-dressed diner in the building. Well, there’s a first time for everything! Note, however, I specify best-dressed diner, because the waiting staff – present in some number – were immaculately turned out. With time I realised that, while the restaurant’s reputation is strong, and the sequence of dishes which soon began appearing told me why, the setting here is casual, casual, casual. Diners are here to relax; let the team do the work.
I slipped my jacket from my shoulders, and settled into one of the most enjoyable dinners of all time.
What’s that? You want to see what they serve in this establishment? All right then, here we go.
We started with this, a tart of fermented gooseberry, salted mullet and toasted seed, accompanied by a tiny jug of juices infused with woodruff. This opener immediately highlighted the attention to detail and personal service as Mrs Winedoctor – who had mentioned a few food likes and dislikes when asked on arrival – was given a no-fuss substitution. One course in and it is clear that this is an establishment intent on sending you away happy.
Me? I have no problem with fish, cooked, raw, salted or smoked, I will eat it, as I did this little tart. It was delicious!
Next up, a fritter of Duroc pig, an American breed, with smoked eel, lovage and fermented sweetcorn. This was a one-or-two-bite delight. The flavours here were fabulous, if rather fleeting (the photograph makes it look a lot larger than it was!).
We might be in the Lake District, but I have found Scottish produce follows me wherever I go, even to the wilds of untamed Cumbria. Caramelising this pudding of Corra Linn – an unpasteurised hard cheese made from ewe’s milk on a family-run farm in Lanarkshire – in sugary birch sap gave this dense, oozing ingot a rather sweet edge, but it was nicely offset by a dash of stout vinegar, all of which worked well as a foil for the small mountain of shaved Corra Linn cheese on top.
At this moment the team decided to step it up a gear.
If a dining experience should tempt the eye before the palate, then this dish certainly fits the bill. These little ‘sacks’ fool the eye; they look as though you could pick them up and squeeze out the filling, but in truth they are rigid ceramic pots filled with with a steamed crab and horseradish emulsion, spiced up with pickled beach roses, celtuce and rosehip. It was delicious, but looking at the image above I hope you will agree this was a dish which teases and pleases the eye (as it did the palate).
Next up, a ‘soup’ of ibis celeriac roasted in yeast oil, swimming in a buttermilk sauce, and liberally swirled with pike perch roe. A delicious, smoky, umami-laden mouthful here, gone in a flash.
From celeriac to artichoke, the next dish combined flavours of Welsh truffle, crosnes (also known as Japanese or Chinese artichoke), and Fuseau artichoke, a variety of Jerusalem artichoke. The autumnal vibe in this dish was reinforced by the presence of chestnut and an emulsion of fermented pear, enriched by Doddington, a Northumberland cow’s milk cheese. I really enjoyed this one.
Back to raid Scotland’s larder again now, with a langoustine tail from Gairloch, a coastal setlement sitting well north on the west coast. Served in a foam filled with braised pulses, Duncan cabbage and smoked kombu, an edible seaweed, this was quite delicious, although I thought it a rather muted use of top quality produce. I can’t help comparing it to the langoustine tail served at Lyla in Edinburgh last year, which was simply stunning, and streets ahead of this dish.
Next up, something of a L’Enclume special. Heston Blumenthal has his snail porridge, and Simon Rogan’s speciality is seaweed custard, here combined with mushrooms, braised tendons, sugar kelp and bone marrow. The presentation is delightful, and the flavours work well (I am not allergic to savoury, seaweedy custards), but the broth and the custard refused to come together, acting like oil and water, and the other components of the dish retained a little too much bite for my liking.
The waters around the Hebrides and Scotland’s sea lochs are renowned for the quality of skate, so presumably the next course – of west coast skate – is sourced from one these many fisheries. The supporting elements here, the dulse (previously discussed in detail in my report from Dulse, Dean Banks’ restaurant in Edinburgh) mussels, kohlrabi and elderflower provided a delicious foil for the fish, indeed overshadowing it entirely, the rather wan and lightly cooked skate disappearing beneath these other flavours. Still a delight to eat though.
Next up were two duck courses, the duck first presented whole before the two dishes came in sequence to the table. The first was this this visually vibrant dish.
This was simply delightful. The photograph tells only half the full story, as within the spinach and wild garlic foam – I suppose they are just visible, peeking through the surface – there are miniature balls of Red King Edward potatoes and dumplings of duck offal. These provided a beautiful bite and an array of punchy flavours. Fabulous!
Duck dish number two was next.
This was an innovative dish, combining flavours I would never have thought would work together but they did. I probably need not point out the duck was gently cooked, the pink meat complemented by the intense colours and flavours of the Boltardy beetroot and elderberry.
The cheese course I found visually uninspiring, a thin layer of crumb coating the bottom of a bowl, but this only made the ridicuously delicious nature of the dish all the more striking. This was a beautiful combination of frozen-melt-in-your-mouth Tunworth cheese, seasoned with malt crumb, lemon thyme and jostaberry, the latter a curious cross of blackcurrant, American black gooseberry and European gooseberry. The cheese hits the palate cold, then melts, with malty and fruit contrasts from the other ingredients. Superficially it seems simple, but this is deceptive; the end result was superb.
A flurry of little sweet treats concluded the meal. A dish of preserved penny cherries were delicious, although the sheep’s milk crisps were not universally appreciated.
A little ice cream cone made using Crown Prince squash, pictured above, was surprisingly sweet and delicious, while the Kendal mint stones – nuggets of mint cake disguised as pebbles, pictured below – served to remind me (again) that great dishes tease the eye as much as the palate.
Dinner ended with L’Enclume’s signature sweet conclusion, the Anvil (pictured below), a caramel mousse with a sauce of miso, apple and spruce. This was also delightful.
I must finish this Winedoctor Eats report with a few words on the wine list, which is a broad affair with 28 pages of options, from all the world’s most renowned regions, but less familiar ones too, including Hungary, Slovakia, Lebanon (with not a bottle of Chateau Musar in sight), Canada, Uruguay and beyond. Long-term subscribers will know to which section I turned first, and was pleased to find a nice selection from the Loire Valley, with a decent list of mostly trustworthy names as well as more hip, cultish labels for those who value this option. So yes, you can buy Clos Rougeard from the list should you be so inclined. Although I plumped for the 2019 Anjou Blanc Bonnes Blanches from Domaine Belargus.
It probably goes without saying, but this meal was one of the most enjoyable in recent years. The quality of many of the dishes was tip-top, and while a few did not hit the bull’s eye dead centre this is largely an issue of personal preferences and taste nuances, and I am sure another diner could have the exact opposite view, liking the dishes I loved, and vice versa. What really made the occasion worthy of those three stars though was the entire experience, with friendly, competent and good-humoured yet eternally discreet service from the waiting staff, who were welcoming, helpful and considerate, without any hint of fuss at any moment.
If there is one facet of a restaurant that is absolutely necessary to provide a three-star experience, it is this.
And L’Enclume certainly has it.
Here’s hoping for another trip to the Lake District before too long. I just need to conjure up something worth celebrating. Surely I have a more significant birthday coming up sometime in the next few years?
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