The Lake District

[sarah w]

Hi

I am looking for some rec's for a birthday lunch in the lake district in July

We will be staying in Bowness on windermere, i would prefer not to have

to drive anywhere so i could enjoy some vino so places that are reachable

via train,bus,Taxi etc would be great

Thanks

sarah xx

Edited April 5, 2004 by sarah w (log)

[Bapi]

The Samling and Miller Howe both over look Windermere. The former looks particulary interesting

L'Enclume is at Cartmel. One I want to try.

Sharrow Bay is at Ullswater and is utterly fantastic ( I did a post about it last year )

Punch Bowl Inn at Crosthwaite - Stephen Doherty's the chef and it has a good reputaation.

In Bowness itself are Linthwaite House and The Port Hole Eating House.

Hope that helps

[PS]

The Punchbowl's really good (http://www.punchbowl.fsnet.co.uk). I'm also a big fan of The Drunken Duck Inn (http://www.drunkenduckinn.co.uk) at Barngates on the way to Hawkshead - good food and brews its own very good beer as well. Both should be taxiable from Bowness, though the Punchbowl is closer.

[sarah w]

Thanks for info so far, we are actually staying at the drunken duck for 2 nights before bowness, looking foward to that.

I have printed off some of the menus for the places you guys have recommended.

Does anyone know whether we could get to L'eclume or Sharrow bay by public transport/or taxi for lunch..?

Would you regard the Samling, Miller howe or Linthwaite house as fine dining?

Thnks

x

[Bapi]

The Samling certainly reads as if its aiming for the high end - Assiette of Pigs head and root vegetable and turbot poached in langoustine stock, with morels and white asparagus, according to the GFG, which gives it a 5 this year. They also do eight course menu gourmand for £60. From our Sharrow Bay trip , I remember it being up a very steep private road, just off the main A road, such that I imagine the views must be spectacular from the Samling itself. I am fairly sure that Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman took the whole place over a few years back for a stay( if that's an endorsement!!).

Also in the vicinity of Windermere are Holbeck Ghyll and Gilpin Lodge, which might be worth a look at. Both get five again in the GFG.

Re Taxi's- I suggest that you get your Hotel in Bowness, or do a search for taxis- to sound out how much a taxi would cost, as there is very little chance of getting a bus direct to Cartmel or to Sharrow Bay. Be worth it though in my opinion.

Edited April 6, 2004 by Bapi (log)

[sarah w]

Review of the lake district last week:

2 nights at drunken duck http://www.drunkenduckinn.co.uk . A lovely place, we had a nicely decorated and positioned room across the courtyard with seating at rear looking out over the fells.

The bar is open all day,they do food lunch and dinner we only dined in the evening, the food was high quality Brasserie/gastropub fare.

The 1st night we had

Crab cake with chilli and ginger jam and Rabbit with shitake mushrooms and nutmeg cream.

Both well executed & tasty, a very meaty crab cake. My partner said the rabbit was nice and moist and the dish worked well

For mains we had Pot roast duck, fennel, new potatoes and broccoli with blueberry glaze & Venison in coca with chestnut polenta, caramalised figs and espresso iced pistachio.

The duck was good if a little over cooked, the new pots and broccoli spear made it feel a bit like normal pub grub.

My other half chose the venison as it has been on the menu some time so we assumed it must be good. He found the venison

was quite tasteless but could be season, the polenta was mush and we both feel polenta benefits from being fried. The sauce was

ok but very bitter and the pistachios were nice but really just sugar coated..

He did enjoy the dish but just felt that each component could have been dealt with better..

Dessert was lovely, Dark chocolate,raspberry and hazelnut torte with raspberry sorbet and caramelized hazelnuts...

***

Night2

I had the scallops and bacon special which was very good, 5 decent scallops

Andy had the risotto with haddock,bacon and pea..This was well cooked risotto

For mains I had Snapper with Risotto, a good meaty piece of fish that worked well with the risotto

Andy had Lemon sole, nicely cooked. Light herb crust...

We shared dessert again, the Warm waffles with "Tag lag"(their own brewed beer) ice cream & maple Syrup Sauce..Very good, lets just say we had to lie down after this meal

Included in your room price is also breakfast, Afternoon tea and a newspaper

The breakfast selection was the best i have had in a hotel, museli, Yoghurt and fruit compote,decent full english, field mushroom with poached egg and hollandaise, Smoked haddock etc.

Afternoon tea was a choice of leaf tea, Scones,Jam and Cream on the Sunday and a delicious slab of passion cake on the monday

All in all a lovely place to stay and dine, warm and friendly and when then the sun shines the landscape is fantastic

The only other "proper" meal we had was a lunch for Andys birthday, i had enquired on this very thread of where was best to go. We had checked website menus and settled on the Gilpin lodge. It is about 2.5 miles up behind Bowness.

We decided to walk, quite steep on a hot day

A lovely small country house hotel, we opted to sit in the well maintained garden. There was only one other couple on this wednesday lunch.. http://www.gilpinlodge.com/food.htm

Lunch is £19:50 for 3 courses and very decent

I started with a carpaccio with parmesan,leaf and smattering of truffle oil

Followed but an excellent piece of salmon, Potato cake, Summer Veg & Lobster broth

Andy had a mighty slab of guinea fowl terrine with wild mushrooms and asparagus strips.

For main he had a very moist piece of pot roast chicken, lentils and summer veg

The summer veg was a baby leek & asparagus, the thing was they were so well cooked,Very green and crunchy, almost like they had been deep fried without tasting like that !! Lovely

Desserts were good too, a summer fruit champagne jelly with vanilla ice cream and a hot chocolate fondant with baileys ice cream...

With a 2 g&t's, bottle of Viognier & a muscat and chilean dessert wine total was £80

Well recommended

An excellent holiday in a beautiful place

Sarah x

[sarah w]

Nearly forgot, also stopped for lunch at the Punchbowl in crossthwaite http://www.punchbowl.net/ . Main menu looked good but we opted for bar meals.

A great beef sarnie and a Punchbowl ploughmans which had 6 different cheeses, 3 chuntneys-pear,picalli,sundried tom. We totally forgot to ask if they were local cheeses but they were very good, included a goats brie, Grilled goat on filo and several firmer but crumbly cheeses from mild to blue..

Excellent, the most original ploughams we have ever had

The chef is ex Gavroche, we heard many other patrons discussing that the food in dining room was very good

sarah x

[Bapi]

Excellent stuff, I was going to ask you whether you had been as my friend and his frumpy wife are off up there next Friday for a week. I'll let them know.

Cheers

B

[sarah w]

I hope his wife doesnt look on egullet !!

It was lovely, weather was good and i was surprised that once out of main drags i.e ambleside & windermere the roads were clear and a pleasure to drive on..

I would easily recommend everywhere mentioned we ate and would definately advise a night or two's stay at the duck..Twas very relaxing

sarah x

[Bapi]

I hope his wife doesnt look on egullet !!

She lurks on EG - don't you, you mad harridan?- which is why I am so gleefully rude.

They are off for their anniversary for a weeks holiday and I am fairly sure they are going to the Punchbowl for one meal and to a place called Sheila's Cottage in Ambleside for another.

Thanks again Sarah

[PS]

Glad you liked it Sarah

It is indeed a lovely place.

[Mrs Woman]

Hi all. I’m not much of a regular poster (as you’ve probably noticed) but egullet is my daily lunchtime read and has been for nigh on five years, so I thought I’d finally post a review of my own. Be gentle with me…

New house followed by redundancy followed by big wedding has put paid to most eating out in the past 2.5 years but now, six months married, we finally felt we could loosen the old purse strings and treat ourselves to a weekend away. We’d sent some friends to Linthwaite House (www.linthwaite.com) for their honeymoon last year and they loved it, so we were really looking forward to it.

The hotel was lovely (although our chic room was a little small), the view over windermere and the extensive gardens were fantastic (the hotel has its own fishing tarn) and the staff were very charming and helpful. But enough of that, on with the food. It was about two months ago so apologies for the vague descriptions!

Saturday dinner:

Canapés: Parmesan something, pork belly something – neither particularly thrilling, not a great reflection on what was to come. This was followed by a small cup of velvety spicy parsnip soup.

My starter: Gnocchi with lobster and summer truffle was divine and possibly one of the best things I have ever eaten. The gnocchi was as light as air, and the lobster and accompanying sauce beautifully done. My husband was a less enraptured with his own starter of venison carpaccio (served with a little frisee if my memory serves me right), although I think it was a little too gamey for his tastes.

He much preferred his fillet of beef with hot pot veg and swede puree – the small portion of meat he let me taste was melt-in-the-mouth tender. My own main of Goosnargh duck breast with braised cabbage and fondant potato in a Madeira and raisin jus arrived with the duck cut into small squares arranged ‘artfully’ around the plate – I would have much preferred the breast to have stayed in its previous shape but it was cooked well and was tasty to boot.

The sweetness of my pud of strawberry soufflé was offset well by the accompanying balsamic ice cream. My husband decided to try some cheeses from the apparently award-winning UK & Ireland-based board. His (slightly stingy) selection of five cheeses included Blackstick’s Blue, good old Mrs Kirkham’s Lancashire and Gold Cross, the latter of which he liked the best – surprising as he usually can’t abide goats cheese.

Tea and drinks followed in the small bar with petit fours of a couple of chop chip cookies (ok), doughnut (yummy) and lovely buttery flapjacks.

Sunday dinner:

Canapés: parma ham rolled around a fig and a small piece of moist cod wrapped in light, almost tempura, batter (it was this canapé that prompted me to try the fish for main as I could tell I was in for a treat).

Problems started this evening with the soup (pumpkin this time) being only warm. We shrugged this off and anticipated our starters. Hubby had gone for the gnocchi after my raving about it, while I opted for seared foie gras on a white bean cassoulet. Both were cooked but alas they arrived tepid. We noticed the table next to us were muttering over their starters too so we decided to point out the error and all was swiftly replaced with much apologies.

Normal service resumed with my dish of sea bass on smoked ratatouille, with scallops on pesto bash and basil foam. I wasn’t disappointed with my purposeful choice of the fish: both bass and scallop were superb, the smoked rataouille not too overpowering and the foam and mash worked wonderfully with the scallops. The other half had lamb (again with hot pot veg and swede puree) but didn’t let me try any!

A choc fondant, with choc fudge sauce and lavender ice cream for me and bread & butter pudding with whisky and honey ice cream for him followed.

We also enjoyed an afternoon tea during our stay of finger sandwiches, two deliciously still-warm scones with raspberry jam and clotted cream, a sharp ginger cake, an average choc sponge and a wicked cream & raspberry tart. We were also spoilt with an ‘extra’ of lemon posset topped with strawberry syrup, which the hubby let me eat all to myself as I am a greedy pig!

I think the kitchen has a reasonably new head chef in Simon Bolsover and he appears to be doing well. Whilst not every dish tried provided fireworks, it was all technically accomplished and very enjoyable. I’d certainly go back for the food alone (although the breakfasts could do with some better black pudding – once you've tried Bury, there' no going back!)

All in all, an enjoyable stay only slightly marred by the dirty look (I didn’t imagine it, my husband saw it too!) the owner (who’d been in the breakfast room earlier barking about property prices) gave us as we headed back up to our room. Goodness knows what we’d done to upset him, perhaps we didn’t look rich enough and he thought we’d be doing a runner?

Aplogies for rambling (if you got this far!)

[Andy Lynes]

Goosnargh duck breast with braised cabbage and fondant potato in a Madeira and raisin jus arrived with the duck cut into small squares arranged ‘artfully’ around the plate – I would have much preferred the breast to have stayed in its previous shape.

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I think we have Nico Ladenis to blame for that style of presentation - certianly his breast of duck with crushed peppercorns and honey in his book Nico is prepared in that fashion. I had a similar dish in Paul Heathcote's restaurant in Preston a few years back and didn't like the idea of the meat having been cut up for me like I was 6 years old.

[Winot]

Aplogies for rambling (if you got this far!)

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Not at all - thanks for the review.

BTW, is your husband called Mr. Woman?

[Mrs Woman]

Winot, I'm not sure he'd like being called that, even if he knew he was being mentioned on the web. I suppose (if I ever get round to writing another review) he can be just plain old Mr W.

[Bapi]

All in all, an enjoyable stay only slightly marred by the dirty look (I didn’t imagine it, my husband saw it too!) the owner (who’d been in the breakfast room earlier barking about property prices) gave us as we headed back up to our room. Goodness knows what we’d done to upset him, perhaps we didn’t look rich enough and he thought we’d be doing a runner?

Aplogies for rambling (if you got this far!)

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I have nothing but contempt for pompous idiots like that.

Like wise - don't apologise, I enjoyed reading it. Giving thought to our (gulp) 5th Anniversary this year, and was thinking about the Lake District. Thanks