Review: Lake Road Kitchen, Ambleside

UPDATE Oct 2016 – just been back to LRK and it’s better than ever. They’ve switched to a no choice tasting menu, 5 or 8 courses, and we enjoyed snails braised in homemade grain miso, slow-cooked octopus with fresh cheese and lovage oil, best piece of guinea fowl I ever tasted with hedgehog mushrooms and cep sauce, broad bean and pea stew with homemade bean miso and a sea buckthorn eclair with scorched meringue. LRK is such an original, can’t recommend it highly enough. Here’s the original review:

I’m going to do the Lake Road Kitchen in Ambleside, and my readers, an injustice. Because it’s really far too long after our meal there to be writing this review. Things just got in the way. On the other hand, it might be interesting to see what lasting impressions a meal leaves you with, in this case almost a month later. I’ve had hundreds of fine meals over the years and there’s no very strong rhyme or reason to which ones stay with me. Originality, location and occasion are probably more important than the simple quality of the food. Noma and L’Enclume really stand out, but then I will always remember the very amazing Pri Lojetsu in Slovenia and the boldly eccentric Stravaigin in Glasgow.

Noma & L’Enclume are both very relevant to Lake Road Kitchen, where they have definitely taken the Scandinavian food trend and transported it to the mountainous north-west of England. So: a kitchen window framed by rough sawn-wood planking. A dish of butter roasted hen-of-the-woods mushroom. Foraged ingredients on every plate. Bottles of fermenting vegetables and fruit on a shelf in the corner.

That hen-of-the-woods main was really very good. Scattered with hazelnuts and served with bright, fresh yogurt to cut the buttery/earthy taste, along with a bit of acidity from nasturtium leaves and flowers. Maureen had a rich roast veal dish with charred lettuce and sweetcorn, great eating. I’ve started in the middle, since the hen (a huge fungus, by the by) was what I remember best. That and the pre-starter, a wooden board scattered with deep-fried nuggets of partridge to be picked up and dipped into little puddled of fermented wild garlic puree and fresh home-made yogurt. These were so darn good and more-ish I came within an inch of ordering another. Lucky I didn’t, as I remember we were stuffed by the time we left.

My starter was a gooey slow-cooked yolk and an even slower-cooked piece of sticky… oh drat, forgotten already. Pig cheek? Anyway, the nifty bit I do remember was the scattering of preserved wild garlic seed pods. Essentially these are treated the same way capers are treated in the

Mediterranean, and the result are funky little garlic hits. Magic! Maureen’s carrot starter was astonishing (astonishing because she loathes carrots, so why order a carrot starter?), and there was something in the goat-butter roasted carrot that tasted absolutely wow.

I know we had puds ‘cos I’ve got the photos, and my buckwheat pastry was scrummy, but it’s clear in my memory at least that the savoury courses were the stars of the show.

So there we go, that’s me reviewing from month-old memory. Sorry guys! We had a superb meal at the Lake Road Kitchen, the service was excellent, and I’ll be going back the next time we’re in the Lake District. If you make a special trip up to the Lakes for the delights of L’Enclume, I reckon Lake Road Kitchen should be number 2 on your hitlist. It’ll be interesting to see if it still lives in my memory in a couple of years – given the originality on show, it ought to.