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Dining out in the Lake District has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. The choice is no longer between twee tearooms or food for hungry hikers – though you can still find both – instead the region now rivals that of many metropolitan areas. An astonishing 13 restaurants boast Michelin stars (L’Enclume has three) and pubs range from the gastro to the down-to-earth and filling. Add in smart bistros, tapas bars, vegetarian cafés and you’ll not go hungry. Local produce to look out for includes Herdwick lamb, damsons, forest mushrooms and the ginormous Cumberland sausage.
Find a restaurant by type:
- Best all-rounders
- Best for fine dining
- Best for families
- Best for cheap eats
- Best for walk-ins
Best all-rounders
Drunken Duck Inn
Barngates, near Ambleside | ££ | Reservations essential | drunkenduckinn.co.uk
At a lonely crossroads, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, for first-timers it can be a mission to get here. But plenty of people do, and keep returning. Despite its pubby exterior, this inn offers far-from-ordinary pub grub. In fact, this is the Lake District’s first gastropub, where you’ll find food that is considered but never pretentious. How about wood pigeon, roasted apple and sherry, or venison with polenta, chard and wild garlic? There are interesting vegetarian choices, too, plus a restaurant-standard wine list. Or try one of their home-flavoured botanical gins. Décor is well-judged, contemporary country style – rugs on oak floors, hop-hung beams, heaps of cartoons and prints. You can opt to sit either in the cosy dining room or jovial bar.
The Schelly
Ambleside | ££ | Reservations recommended | theschelly.co.uk
This is a taste of Michelin-star dining but without the price tag or formality. Chef-owner Ryan Blackburn opened The Schelly (named after a rare Lakeland fish) to offer a casual alternative to his Michelin-starred Old Stamp House, which sits next door in the heart of Ambleside. The menu is straightforward and fuss-free, with small plates arriving when they’re ready. Many have strong local sourcing: potted shrimp (from Morecambe Bay) with curried sauce, Cumbrian venison tartare with garlic and pickled shallot, foraged wild garlic gnocchi and morels. And if the sticky toffee madeleines are on the menu, they’re cooked to order. It’s a small place, with a strong shades-of-green theme, laidback and informal, and with several seats always reserved for walk-ins.
The Jumble Room
Grasmere | ££ | Reservations recommended | thejumbleroom.co.uk
This wonderfully and aptly named restaurant fizzes with energy – from the pink and purple velvet cushions, to the mis-matched plates and the bluesy music. It’s about as far as you can get from the twee tearooms or traditional pubs elsewhere in Grasmere. Food is a refreshing Middle Eastern spin on Lakeland produce. Picture slow-cooked local lamb stew with date and rose couscous and harissa-roasted carrots, or baked salmon with black tiger prawns and coconut and lemongrass curry. Even simple sides are lifted out of the ordinary, such as greens with lovage pesto. Everything is served in generous portions. Tables are neighbourly, so expect a fun, lively evening. Check out the album covers in the loos before you go.
George & Dragon
Clifton, near Penrith | ££ | Reservations recommended | georgeanddragonclifton.co.uk
The George & Dragon might look like another 18th-century coaching inn has been given a snazzy makeover – which it has, with lovely faded rugs on flagstone floors, eau-de-nil panelling and rough-wood tables – but its trump card is that it’s owned by the Lowther family who also own the splendid nearby estate. So expect to find great things on the menu such as the estate’s rare-breed pork osso buco (braised veal shanks) or slow-cooked shorthorn beef with truffled potato and parmesan purée. Round proceedings off with a fruit crumble supplied from the kitchen gardens. It’s a bit out of the way but worth it for the stylish and skilful cooking.
Fellpack
Keswick | £-££ | Reservations recommended | fellpack.co.uk
Fellpack has been around Keswick in some form for several years, but has now found its proper, grown-up home in a big, exposed stone and bright-tiled site five minutes from Derwentwater. Moreish nibbles – such as homemade focaccia with romesco dip, and baked saffron arancini – are followed by their signature “Fellpots”; classics given a Middle Eastern or Asian spin and served in chunky stoneware bowls. Slow-braised beef shin ragu, and lamb tagine with minted labneh and toasted pistachios are firm favourites, plus there are punchy vegetarian and vegan options. It’s fun, friendly and open for drinks only, too.
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Best for families
Brackenrigg Inn
Ullswater | £-££ | Reservations recommended | another.place/the-lake/the-brackenrigg-inn
You may have to drag yourself inside from the car park; the views over Ullswater, the region’s second-largest lake, and its surrounding fells are mesmerising. Formerly a rather run-down pub, the white-washed Brackenrigg has been given a rustic sprucing up (it’s now owned by the nearby Another Place hotel). Stripped-wood floors, beams, vintage tables and chairs, and bold colours of moss green, indigo blue and amber – together with toasty fires – create a relaxed and fun vibe. The menu is good pub grub as it used to be: homemade steak pie and mash, gammon with fried egg and pineapple, lamb rump with potato cake, and sweet potato and chickpea curry, with jam roly poly and sticky toffee pudding to finish. Sunday lunch is challenging (in a good way) and there are good vegetarian and vegan options.
The Yan
Grasmere | £-££ | Reservations essential | theyan.co.uk
This warm, buzzy, bistro in converted farm buildings, is a family affair: sisters Jess and Georgina between them run the operation, with Georgina overseeing the kitchen and her husband acting as sommelier and manager. Their parents Dave and Sally set up the business, including the sleek rooms above the restaurant. A menu of modern comfort food is full of punchy flavours, spicy twists and local sourcing: slow-braised Herdwick lamb and chilli croquettes; prawn, chilli and lime fishcakes with roasted cauliflower; roasted pepper and sun-dried tomato bhajis with curried couscous; and an epic shepherd’s pie with cheesy mash. Generous sharing platters, home-made puddings and local cheeseboards are also on offer.
Punch Bowl Inn
Crosthwaite, Lyth valley | ££ | Reservations recommended | the-punchbowl.co.uk
With the entire ground floor a series of little dining areas, this is definitely a foodie rather than a drinkers’ pub. But it retains a traditional country pub feel, with low beams, flagstone floors, honeysuckle around the door, cushion-crammed window seats and polished-wood tables. The cooking is assured but not elaborate (no fancy canapés); perhaps a starter of twice-baked Mrs Kirkham’s cheese soufflé followed by cod with butter bean and chorizo cassoulet or mini Shepherd’s pie with creamed leeks, plus a relatively pricey wine list. At lunchtimes, there might be fish and chips with creamy peas and chicken schnitzel. To eat outside, overlooking the neighbouring church on a summer’s day, is a treat.
The Lingholm Kitchen
Portinscale, near Keswick | £-££ | Reservations for afternoon tea | thelingholmkitchen.co.uk
Barely have you stepped inside this airy, glass-walled and slate-floored café when your eye is drawn to the display of cakes: magnificently huge slices. On this privately owned lakeshore estate where Beatrix Potter holidayed in the 1920s, everything is made in the adjoining bakery, famous for its sourdough. Breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and sweet treats are all on offer. Savoury dishes range from avocado with tomato and chili relish on organic rye, to mackerel on toast with a tomato salsa and lamb kofta burgers. The Garden cake (like a carrot cake) and Victoria sponge roulade are perennially popular while fish finger sandwiches and a Peter Rabbit picnic are winners for children. Save time to explore the Victorian walled garden; the inspiration for Mr McGregor’s garden in Potter’s Tale of Peter Rabbit.
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Best for fine dining
L’Enclume
Cartmel | £££ | Reservations essential | lenclume.co.uk
Chef-owner Simon Rogan was at the forefront of the movement that saw UK restaurants begin to offer menus driven by foraging and local sourcing. His three-Michelin-starred restaurant (eight-course lunch, 15-course dinner) follows that same ethos today and has its own 12-acre “Home Farm” which dictates much of the day’s menu. This isn’t Blumenthal-style magic but tiny courses of exceptional skill and balance: an egg shell containing a yolk in mushroom broth; a baby fritter of pork and smoked eel in fermented sweetcorn; a disc of frozen Tunworth cheese with a malt crumb and jostaberries; and the dinkiest caramel mousse sitting on compressed apple. The surroundings, a former smithy, are deliberately rustic and minimalistic to focus attention on the food. All is presented exquisitely but without fanfare on rustic pottery, handmade glass and even a pebble.
Heft
High Newton, near Cartmel | ££-£££ | Reservations essential | hefthighnewton.co.uk
Just one of many examples of the Rogan effect – Heft’s chef-owner, Kevin Tickle, previously worked at Simon Rogan’s two Cartmel restaurants – Heft gained a Michelin star within two years of opening in 2023. The menus at the 17th-century coaching inn, which Kevin runs with his wife, Nicola (both Cumbrian-born), reflect Kevin’s deep passion for, and knowledge of, the county’s produce. His father taught him to fish and forage while “heft” is a Cumbrian term that indicates an instinctive or natural connection to a landscape. Expect dishes on the eight-course menu such as Herdwick hogget rump with alliums and chimichurri and peppercorn sauce, monkfish with mussel and cauliflower curry, and rhubarb with goat’s milk and marigold. There are also decent ales in the bar and a traditional, more affordable, Sunday lunch served until 6pm.
Forest Side
Grasmere | £££ | Reservations essential | theforestside.com
Local sourcing is more than a token gesture at this Michelin-starred restaurant with rooms; up to 80 per cent of the fruit, vegetables and herbs come from the kitchen garden, or are foraged, with over 100 vegetable varieties alone. The seven-strong kitchen team, which turns out the four- to eight-course tasting menus, is led by Head Chef Paul Leonard (previously at Isle of Eriska and Devonshire Arms hotels). Expect complex, precisely balanced dishes such as roasted monkfish with wild horseradish, aged beef sirloin with Yorkshire asparagus, alliums and bone marrow, and local rhubarb with white chocolate and ginger. Clean, modern, fresh – much like the light-filled dining room in this handsome Victorian villa.
The Cedar Tree, Farlam Hall
Hallbankgate, Brampton | ££-£££ | Reservations essential | farlamhall.com
Chef-patron Hrishikesh Desai came trailing a Michelin Star (from Gilpin Hotel, near Windermere) when he arrived at Farlam Hall, a country house hotel near Brampton. Within less than a year, in 2024, he had garnered one for Farlam’s Cedar Tree restaurant. The hotel has a quietly elegant style, but don’t be deceived, it’s warm and relaxed, and the fine-dining taster menu has an element of fun. Hrishikesh likes his spices. Cod tartare might come in a crispy puffball with carrot and cumin purée, hen of the wood with green chilli chutney, or local game with home-grown pears, truffle and Chettinad sauce. Sunday to Tuesday, when the main restaurant is closed, there’s a lighter menu in the hotel’s Bistro Enkel.
The Cottage in the Wood
Near Braithwaite, Whinlatter Forest | £££ | Reservations essential | thecottageinthewood.co.uk
This aptly named restaurant – a cottage on a narrow road that climbs 1,000 feet up through Whinlatter Forest above Lake Bassenthwaite – belies its modest looks. Michelin-starred since 2019, it turns out carefully considered Modern British dishes, often of intriguing combinations: gin-cured trout with horseradish and beetroot, perhaps, or leek with duck egg and hazelnut, or beef with hispi cabbage and XO sauce. And there’s a real sense of place in the dishes: Cumbrian Herdwick hogget from the surrounding fells, foraged mushrooms from the surrounding woodland. Its semi-circular conservatory dining room overlooks woodland with views through the trees to Skiddaw and, on clear nights, bewitches with a starlit sky.
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Best for walk-ins
Homeground Coffee + Kitchen
Windermere | £ | facebook.com/homegroundcafe
The good-natured pavement queues outside this corner café in Windermere town attest to its enticing menu and welcoming atmosphere. Everyone from hikers and young families to people clutching laptops seem to enjoy this chilled-out space with its chunky wood tables, pot plants and cool tunes. Enjoy a breakfast of bacon sarnies on ciabatta or a brunch of baked eggs with avocado on toasted sourdough, or just indulge in well-judged coffee and spoiling sweet treats.
Mathilde’s Café
Grasmere | £ | heatoncooper.uk.uk
This airy, pale-wood and glass affair, attached to Grasmere’s Heaton Cooper Gallery, has a Scandinavian feel, and name, for good reason. Mathilde, a Norwegian girl, stole the heart of Lancashire-born Alfred Heaton Cooper, the first generation of these well-respected Lake District landscape artists (now in its third) while he was travelling around Scandinavia as a young man in the 1890s. The café’s food has a Scandinavian simplicity and earthiness; perfect brunch-style dishes such as poached egg with Jarlsberg or sauteed mushrooms on sourdough and a brioche bun hot dog with pickled onions and Finnish mustard. Eat inside or out, and leave room for one of its enormous homemade scones or cakes, such as Norwegian apple cake or Scandi teabread.
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Best for cheap eats
Chesters by the River
Skelwith Bridge, near Ambleside | £ | chestersbytheriver.co.uk
One of the region’s first vegetarian cafés, opened in 1985, Chesters has been through a few changes, most recently to a more casual, self-service approach. Not everyone is pleased (and there are queues at busy times), but the setting beside the bubbling River Brathay and the quality of food – everything baked and prepared on the premises – remain the same. There are big bowls of salad with wild garlic pasta and pickled celery and fennel, pillowy focaccia, smokey bean turnovers and vegan sausage rolls. Scones are humongous, and cakes, such as a juicy berry slice, and carrot and walnut, are perfect for refuelling after climbing the nearby Langdale Pikes. Eat indoors, on the partially covered riverside terrace or take away to your own picnic spot.
The Old Sawmill Tearoom
Dodd Wood, Lake Bassenthwaite | £ | facebook.com/SawmillTearoom
Tearooms are two-a-penny in the Lake District, many are very good but many are also functional and overpriced. The charm of this one is its bright and cheery style, its rustic setting (a former sawmill with exposed-stone walls, wood-burning stove and vintage photographs) and the well-priced, mostly made-on-the-premises food. After something savoury? Try the Cumberland sausage special or homemade curried chickpea and potato sausage roll. Anyone with a sweet tooth will prefer the home baking: scones with cream (and strawberries in season) or maybe homemade rum butter, fruit pie, or one of the eye-poppingly large cakes.
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How we choose
Every restaurant in this curated list has been tried and tested by our destination expert, who has visited to provide you with their insider perspective. We cover a range of budgets, from neighbourhood favourites to Michelin-starred restaurants – to best suit every type of traveller’s taste – and consider the food, service, best tables, atmosphere and price in our recommendations. We update this list regularly to keep up with the latest opening and provide up to date recommendations.
