Hardens Guide to the Best Restaurants in Windermere
Hardens guides have spent 33 years compiling reviews of the best Windermere restaurants. On Hardens.com you'll find details and reviews of 23 restaurants in Windermere and our unique survey based approach to rating and reviewing Windermere restaurants gives you the best insight into the top restaurants in every area and of every type of cuisine.
Featured Windermere 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. The Punch Bowl Inn
British, Modern restaurant in Crosthwaite
This “consistently enjoyable” and much commented-on gastropub – originally a village blacksmiths from 1829 – wins plaudits for its “helpful and friendly staff” under owner Richard Rose, and for its signature “cheese soufflé that always hits the spot – which is why they keep it on the menu”; other dishes also go down well, not least a “raspberry soufflé to die for”.
3. 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”.
4. Langdale Chase
British, Modern restaurant in Windermere
Ambleside Road - LA23
Positioned on the edge of Lake Windermere, the restaurant at Langdale Chase is closed at the time of writing while it undergoes a multi-million pound refit, with re-opening planned for late 2023. In July 2023, owner Daniel Thwaites announced the appointment of chef Michael Cole to steer the kitchen for the main dining room, whose floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the lake and the Coniston Fells.
5. Hooked
Fish & seafood restaurant in Windermere
Ellerthwaite Square - LA23
2023 Review: This “tiny restaurant in Windermere specialises in expertly cooked fish and seafood”. Established in 2010, it changed hands three years ago and now shares ownership with Bowness-on-Windermere’s Urban Food House. On the debit side, it can be “a bit lacking in atmosphere” (one reporter discerned a “retail shop feel”) and a couple of reports diagnose service issues relating to “post-Brexit and pandemic staff shortages”.
6. Henrock
British, Modern restaurant in Bowness-on-Windermere
Linthwaite House, Crook Road - LA23
The “outstanding” if “lesser-known and more relaxed cousin of the Lake District’s most famous culinary destination” – L’Enclume in nearby Cartmell – “Henrock is a fabulous option for those struggling to save up for (or not quick enough to book)” at the former. You still get real “Simon Rogan excellence”, “overlooking Lake Windermere” in the “lovely Linthwaite Hotel”, complete with “brilliant artwork, great views, delicious and innovative food, and delightful staff and service”.
7. Source (fka Hrishi), Gilpin Hotel
British, Modern restaurant in Windermere
Crook Rd - LA23
“Never failing with the quality of food and service” – ex-Fat Duck chef Ollie Bridgwater did well to hang onto the Michelin star at the Cunliffe family’s Lakeland hotel, where he succeeded Hrishikesh Desai (who previously ran the dining room as Hrishi) just a matter of weeks before it was due to be re-rated. Despite the constant updating of the property, it is a relatively traditional space. There’s a three-course à la carte for £90, or a six-course tasting option for £120 (£200 if you go for the accompanying wine-tasting accompaniment). There is also a less informal option of the Knipe Grill at Gilpin Lake House, which is a waterside building elsewhere on the estate. And see also Gilpin Spice.
8. 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?
9. 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.
10. 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”.
11. 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”).
12. 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.
13. 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”.
14. 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.
15. Gilpin Spice, Gilpin Hotel
Indian restaurant in Windermere
Crook Road - LA23
This modern Lakeland dining room – an Asian dining alternative in this luxuriously updated small hotel – is nowadays presided over by Aakash Ohol, who – prior to the departure of Hrishkesh Desai in December 2022 – was sous chef of Hrishi (since relaunched as Source, see also). Notwithstanding the odd disappointment registered this year, feedback suggests its diverse dishes (inspired by countries along the Spice Route) can be a useful relief to the native fare generally prevalent in this neck of the woods; even if “sometimes it’s difficult to choose and the dishes come as and when they’re ready”.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. Heft
British, Modern restaurant in Newton in Cartmel
This “old pub is now a high-class restaurant with a lot of character”, opened in summer 2021 by locally born couple Kevin & Nicola Tickle – Kevin spent 10 years in the kitchen of the exalted L’Enclume and was also head chef at Forest Side in Grasmere. There are “lots of options for eating, from the full gastronomic evening tasting menu to tasty snacks and pies in the dog-friendly bar” along with a “good wine list and great draft beers from Lakes Brew in Kendal”. One or two reporters feel the performance here is no better than good all-round, but most would go further and feel it’s “a great experience that anyone would happily repeat”.
19. L’Enclume
British, Modern restaurant in Cartmel
Cavendish Street - LA11
“Wonderful! Have been coming here since 2005 and this was the best food I’ve had, fully deserving its third star!” – Simon Rogan’s converted blacksmith’s workshop was, in 2022, the first restaurant in the North to achieve a third Michelin gong, and it’s impressive that – despite its remote Lakeland location – it is nowadays the second most commented-on destination in our annual diners’ poll outside of London. Head chef Paul Burgalieres marshalls the finest local produce – much of it from Simon’s ‘Our Farm’ on the surrounding hillsides – to provide “a symphony of beautifully orchestrated food” in a 17-course meal offering “a completely faultless experience that’s luxurious in its ingredients, cooking, time and space”. Another positive is the “smooth and welcoming service” with “immensely impressive teamwork from the staff from start to finish”. Of course, the cost is “exorbitant”, but for most diners it delivers “everything that was hoped for”: “was it worth the journey? Absolutely!” – “100% we would go back”. (“Second visit in less than twelve months… was able to really enjoy the food without being overawed which you do get on the first visit as everything is so exquisite. Cannot fault. If I could afford the outlay I’d be going more often!”)
20. Aulis at L'Enclume
British, Modern restaurant in Cartmel
Cavendish St - LA11
“As we booked for 3 people, we ended up with the place to ourselves. This was our second visit to Aulis and this was every bit as good as the first and in some ways better as we had the full private dining experience!” – Simon Rogan’s ‘development kitchen in the Lakes’ sits next door to L’Enclume and its six seats aim to provide guests with a ‘behind the scenes’ culinary adventure, with insight into the experimental, creative process and partnership with ‘Our Farm’ behind this Lakeland phenomenon. All feedback acclaims it as a “fantastic dining experience”.
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