As I was saying, before somebody rudely nicked my laptop, a visit to L’Enclume had never really been on the agenda.
And yes, for someone who professes to enjoy nothing more than welding themselves in at a decent table in a decent restaurant, this is likely to sound, at best, a bit daft. But it’s true. I’ve generally been under the impression that the world of three-star dining may not be for me. Too formulaic, too yawny, too many pound signs.
But after that visit to Myse, which at the time had no spangly stars to its name yet was completely on the money from start to finish, I had an urge to see how good good could be.
And so here I am again, half a year on since the last visit to these parts (Rogan and Co on that occasion, itself a neat and tidy, informal and classy little spot), back in Cartmel where the air is heady with the bouquet of herbs and plants that I’ve never heard of – Eau d’Rogan, if you will – being chaperoned to my digs for the night by the attentive welcoming committee.
I’d been put off visiting a few years ago when the bedrooms, dotted around the area, had looked a little lacklustre on the website. But they’ve either been refurbed since then or someone hired a better photographer. Rooms are handsome and homely, and half a bottle of a well-chilled English sparkler waiting to be cracked open on arrival will never not be welcome either, ta very much.
We can’t have been the only visitors with a reservation for 7pm, yet after the short stroll from room to restaurant we’re greeted on first-name terms by sharp-suited Tom, who’s running things this evening with smiley and well-polished finesse. How did he know it’d be us coming through that door at that time and not another couple of guests? It’s a clever sleight-of-hand but doesn’t feel at all disingenuous.
In fact, service throughout is a combination of three-star, luxuriously-oiled machine, where crockery and cutlery seems to vanish and appear from out of nowhere; and relax-you’re-in-safe-hands, easy-going droll humour. That you’re having your tea in one of the best restaurants in the country is almost downplayed. It’s great.
I should mention the food.
With snacky stuff to start, and sweet bits bringing up the rear, I count over a dozen courses in total, and that’s without getting frisky with the fromage. Ordinarily, that’d be about 9 courses too many in my book, but whilst I’ll never be wowed solely by how much stuff a kitchen can fire out, things here zip along nicely.
Of those snacks, there’s a crisp-shelled, warm-cool beetroot tart that demands to be knocked back in one go; something that my notes tell me is ‘savoury rice krispies’ but which the restaurant’s Instagram feed more accurately describes as a pig and eel fritter; and, best of the bunch, a bready Corra Lin cheese pudding, the aroma of which – out of nowhere – fires me back to a favourite (and far stodgier) Primary school dinner 35 years ago. Wallop. Have that, time.
And that’s the thing about L’Enclume. About all the best places, I reckon. Away from the ferments and the foraged, the powders and the pickles, those jaunty angles are off-set with dollops of inherent familiarity.
So, langoustine, buttermilk and smoked roe is deft and delicate but also, according to my scribbles, “rice puddingy”. Pink fir spuds cooked down in chicken fat – a stunner of a soup with real texture and bite and body – tastes like it’s had a spoonful of spiky brown sauce stirred through it thanks to, I assume, the addition of pickled walnuts. And a seaweed custard with husky beef broth and bone marrow is part crème brulee and part Sunday league beef tea in the pissing-down rain. Sublime.
A chunk of translucent monkfish tail, glazed and grilled over Binchotan, or fancy charcoal to me and thee, reminds me of lunch a few months earlier at the excellent Mamo on the Irish coast, and how I still need to publish that post (did I mention that someone nicked my laptop?). And also how, whilst tea at L’Enclume will never, could never, be classed as cheap, there is plenty of it. These are just the highlights.
And here comes a politely but immaculately cooked puck of local lamb. Flesh pink, fat lightly crozzled but still buttery, with a fennel vinegar sauce that keeps things sparky and fresh rather than heavy and dull.
You can’t just go diving into dessert at these places, so you’ll get yer transition course down yer neck, please. It’s a belter, too, of frozen Tunworth cheese – milky and mushroomy – with last year’s blackcurrants and a malt crumb. Crunch and smooth, sweet and sharp.
By the time we get to the signature Anvil dessert – by way of some compressed pear and caramelised cobnuts, a refreshing dish on nodding terms with a trad crumble – there’s mercifully no sign of the sluggishness, knackeredness or can-we-go-home-now-ness that I tend to associate with these big-hitters. The room’s bright and buzzy, the pace unhurried, the touch deceptively light.
A brief aside. I won’t be doing the largely underwhelming wine match again. Granted, we went for the entry level option, but as Asbestos Tongue sagely points out, at this level the basic package should be anything but basic, especially at a ton each. (Forestside, up the road, was very good on this, fyi.) Next time I’ll settle for a couple of bottles of zippy white to lubricate proceedings.
Anyway, you’ll be expecting that dessert to do one thing – spoon crack, hot caramel ooze – but what lands will be far more subtle. Think discontinued Caramac with the sweetness dialled down and you won’t be too far off. It might have been tweaked by then, though. There have been numerous iterations of it through the years. Ever-evolving, and all that.
Those sweet treats in the final act, before you head to one of the nearby pubs for last orders, are no less finessed than what’s come before, either. You’ll go out on a high.
There’s a souped-up warm jam tart; something crispy and Cornetto-esque; and a mouthful that reminds me of Trebor mints given a three-star makeover. Perky little pops of flavour that the evening’s printed menu informs were actually “woodruff, pine cone, tart, and mint stones”. But you get the idea at L’Enclume: a bit of what you know fused with a slice of the new and the unusual, and a thrill from start to finish.
Eating The North 