L’Enclume, Cartmel (***)

3 October 2026
www.lenclume.co.uk

*Three Michelin star restaurant klaxon*

As our marriage came of age and we were considering finding somewhere suitable to celebrate its quinceanera, we headed back to the beautiful village of Cartmel in the South Lakes. Those who have been following our blog for a while will recall that we were here pretty much 4 years ago to the day to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary at the nearby Rogan & Co. Simon Rogan, who gifted his name to his neighbourhood restaurant, also has his flagship L’Enclume just around the corner. Opened in 2002, it secured its first star in 2005, its second in 2013, and has retained its third since 2022.

The restaurant’s setting really is idyllic. Housed in a former blacksmith’s forge on the edge of Cartmel, the restaurant has adopted the anvil as its logo. As well as there being a very real one in the middle of the dining room, the image makes a late appearance in the menu itself.

Restaurant courtyard with Cartmel Priory in the background

Housed in a separate building, this is the exclusive chef’s table.

For drinks, I am always looking for a good wine pairing and L’Enclume has got some great options. I went for a more traditional, exclusive wine based option, while Jane went for a mixed option of wine and non-alcoholic choices. We liked that we had some common pairings mixed with different offerings for some courses that we could share. The highlights of the wine were a 100% pinot noir English sparkling, a smoky South African cinsault, and a sweet Californian riesling with a petrolly kick. The non-alcoholic options included a marigold milk infused with sugar syrup, a pear and miso juice, and a coffee kombucha. But cocktails first, obviously…

‘Pining for the Lakes’ (tequila, apple and pine juice, English sparkling wine reduction, apples from the L’Enclume garden) and ‘Fat washed Old Fashioned’ (Lot 40 rye whisky washed in rendered pork fat, birch sap)

Snack 1: Boltardy beetroot, salted mackerel and sunflower seed tart, served with beetroot juices infused with nasturtium (as a shot on the side)

A close look at that beetroot tart

Snack 2: Fritter of Duroc pork and smoked eel, with lovage puree and fermented sweetcorn

Snack 3: Corra Linn cheese (ewe’s milk cheese from South Lanarkshire, Scotland) with a croissant pudding caramelised in birch sap, stout vinegar gel, aged grated Corra Linn

Passandra cucumber pressed with calamint and raw scallops from Orkney, preserved magnolia and Maldon oyster reduction

Sea spinach, Sweet Belle turnip, anise hyssop cream, Cornish cuttlefish (pressed and ‘noodled’, which we had also seen at Lyla, 22 July 2026) and ham fat, finished with pickled unripe strawberries. Jane’s favourite dish.

Young Red Baron onions in onion ashes, Doddington cheese foam and Welsh truffle puree. Sarah’s favourite dish.

Served with the cheese and onion dish above, pumpernickel and seed rolls with onion butter

Seaweed custard, Zaino courgettes, Gairloch langoustine, roast chicken skin and marjoram

‘Aynsome offerings’, pickled and fresh with shoots and flowers (whatever is ripe and good at Rogan’s nearby Our Farm, where he grows his produce), served with fresh curds from Wraysholme dairy - so pretty

Duncan cabbage, fig leaf, fermented cream with aged garlic, lamb sweetbreads and hen of the woods

West Coast monkfish and Sugarsnax carrots, salted roe and blackcurrant leaves

Bowland pork grilled and glazed in black apples, wilted kale leaves, ramson, ice cider from Somerset

A closer look at that pork and the pork juice and ice cider gravy

Buttered crumpets served with the pork

Frozen Tunworth cheese, malt crumb, greengage, lemon thyme gel

Dessert bevs: Sweet sauvignon blanc from southern Austria, and sweet coffee kombucha

Currants - dried and fresh - in rosehip syrup, meadowsweet, brown butter sponge, caramelised Lancashire mead

‘Anvil’: Caramel and miso mousse, apple and a light spruce syrup

Snacks: Marigold and woodruff ice cream cones, Kendal mint cake stones, apple caramel and vinegar tarts, honey chocolates, and our anniversary treat plum cake

A closer look at that plum cake

It’s rare that Jane and I don’t enjoy our experience of eating at a new restaurant, but dinner at L’Enclume was something incredibly special. The food was jaw-droppingly wonderful, the service faultlessly executed and the overall sense of the restaurant and cuisine being rooted in the local landscape incredibly powerful. This was very much a really, really special occasion place - dinner for two was just shy of £1000 after service was included - but we came away full, very happy, and with a complimentary shiso sapling in hand, feeling that we had received good value for our money. We wouldn’t have wanted to spend our anniversary anywhere else.

And what about the toast sandwich?
Jane: My mixed wine and non-alcoholic drinks pairing. Incorporating local ingredients so fully into the drinks options, was an additional level of thought which reflected the careful consideration of every other aspect of the experience. Plus, I don’t like getting too drunk - unlike Sarah - so breaking up the wine with things other than booze was great.
Sarah: This menu had lots of surprises - monkfish and carrots, cuttlefish and strawberries, mint-filled stones - but for me the most surprising thing was how much I loved the currants were in that dessert. Dried fruit sometimes give me the ick, but that currant and rosehip dessert was my favourite sweet thing on the menu.