Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Grasmere
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Grasmere restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 11 restaurants in Grasmere and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Grasmere restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Grasmere Restaurants
1. The Forest Side
British, Modern restaurant in Grasmere
Keswick Road - LA22
“Simply outstanding in all areas” – Andrew Wildsmith’s “luscious” Lakeland hotel occupies a stone-clad Victorian mansion and it’s, say fans, “well worth the hype and prices” thanks to its “wonderful and romantic setting”, “exemplary service” and “faultless cuisine” from chef Paul Leonard and his team, all combining to create a “top gastronomic experience” – “we’ve been going here for several years since it opened, and it gets better and better: worth the journey!” That said, the pricing is a sticking point for some reporters, who feel “it’s good but not outstanding judged against the strong local competition, and heartier appetites than mine may not be satisfied”. For those of more modest tastes, though, it may be a blessing that you are not constrained to a tasting menu format (although an eight-course menu is available for £140 per person): the entry-level option is a four-course meal for £85 per person.
2. Rothay Manor
British, Modern restaurant in Ambleside
Rothay Bridge - LA22
This “beautiful country house hotel restaurant” has long held a reputation for “wonderful food in a really wonderful Lakeland setting”. It “continues to offer high-class, interesting cuisine in the chef Daniel McGeorge era”, with “innovative and delicious cooking” – “so seasonal, the entire meal evoked autumn on a plate”.
3. The Jumble Room
International restaurant in Grasmere
Langdale Road - LA22
Chrissy & Andy Hill’s vibrant Lake District veteran has been turning out “fantastic food” of a relaxed but appealing bent in a “lovely atmosphere” for over two decades now.
4. The Yan
British, Modern restaurant in Grasmere
Broadrayne Farm - LA22
2023 Review: “Well-cooked food”, most notably the Grasmere Herdwick lamb that appears in various guises – the signature shepherds’ pie, a slider in a brioche bun, a Greek-style roast shoulder – is par for the course at this family-run restaurant-with-rooms. Breakfast is a particular hit, too.
5. Zeffirelli’s
Vegetarian restaurant in Ambleside
Compston Rd - LA22
“Such a pleasant place to eat with lots of customers who don’t even realise they’re in a vegetarian restaurant” – this Lakeland fixture of four decades’ standing is part of a town-centre complex incorporating a cinema and jazz bar. Pizza and pasta are staples of the vegetarian Italian menu, and for £28.95 you can book a complete evening out including a two-course dinner and reserved cinema seat.
6. Fellini's
Vegetarian restaurant in Ambleside
Church St - LA22
2022 Review: Below a cinema, this popular ‘Vegeterranean’ (vegetarian with a Mediterranean twist) has long been a feature of this Lakeland town. Prices are very reasonable.
7. Old Stamp House
British, Modern restaurant in Ambleside
Church St - LA22
Ryan Blackburn and general manager brother Craig’s decade-old venture – the poet Wordsworth’s office when he was the local stamp distributor – is a truly “first-class” affair; the “cellar-type interior gives a cosy atmosphere”, while the “unique” tasting menu of locally sourced food (acclaimed by the tyre men since 2019) is abetted by staff who take “evident pleasure” in their work. Is it cheap? Well, “a full-blown evening tasting menu at £95 per person seems really quite reasonable” to one reporter… “anyway, it raised the bar for cooking in Cumbria for me”.
8. Lake Road Kitchen
Scandinavian restaurant in Ambleside
3 Sussex House, Lake Road - LA22
Chef James Cross returned to the Lake District after doing time at acclaimed eateries Noma, Per Se and Simpsons to set up this new Nordic restaurant with suitably Scandi styling (wooden plank walls, sheepskin throws on the chairs). The dinner-only dining room turns out eight- or twelve-course tasting menus, and wins raves for the “absolutely faultless cooking, amazing service and atmosphere”.
9. Drunken Duck
British, Modern restaurant in Ambleside
Barngates - LA22
Also home to the Barngates Brewery – whose brews are on tap – this rural pub is a popular destination on the Lakeland tourist trail. It didn’t generate much attention in our annual diners’ poll this year, but such as we received was ‘all good‘ (although some feedback suggested “mains aren’t as good as the starters and puds”).
10. The Samling
British, Modern restaurant in Windermere
Ambleside Road - LA23
2023 Review: Set in 27 acres, this country house hotel is one of the better-known luxury destinations in the Lakes and boasts a dining room whose floor-to-ceiling windows provide magnificent views of Windermere and the surrounding peaks, where chef Robby Jenks presides over the kitchen. It inspired very upbeat (but relatively little) feedback again this year, with nominations as an ideal romantic choice or for its impressive afternoon teas. For a full meal in the dining room, lunch is a four-course affair for £60 per person, and in the evening the sole option is a seven-course tasting menu at £115 per person.
11. Holbeck Ghyll
French restaurant in Windermere
Holbeck Lane - LA23
2022 Review: Ratings weakened this year at this luxurious Lakeland hotel, whose wood-panelled, traditional dining room provides a splendid vantage-point for gazing over Lake Windermere. One reporter felt that the “competent, but potentially excellent, cooking was not value for money, due to willing but overstretched service” – perhaps signposting that the blip was due to the tribulations of the times?
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