Witherslack, British, Traditional Restaurant Guide

2022 Review: This “delightful tea shop, delicatessen and tea merchants on the main route into Grange” is “every bit as good as Betty’s” – say fans of its “home-made breads, pastries and cakes to die for”. “Large windows give great views across the ornamental gardens”, and “there’s a real buzz from the coming and going of locals, visitors and efficient, knowledgeable staff”.

“Excellent dinners and amazing breakfasts” both win praise for Simon Rogan’s less formal venue in a beamed cottage just around the corner from his famous foodie temple (and here you can also stay the night). It was responsible for some excellent meals this year, and while the food is in a more straightforward mould than L’Enclume, it’s above-par by the standards of a Cumbrian neighbourhood restaurant. That said, it doesn‘t inspire poetic feedback – diners merely think it’s very good at what it does.

“It is a 6-6-6 in my view!” – Simon Rogan’s converted blacksmith’s workshop on the southern edge of the Lake District towards Morecambe Bay is still riding high on its elevation in 2022 to three Michelin stars: the first UK restaurant north of Watford Gap to have entered the world’s top tier, according to the ‘Guide Rouge’. Most reports of the many we receive (it’s one of the top-20 most commented-on destinations in our annual diners’ poll outside London) say such acclaim is fully justified, with more than one diner this year describing eating here the “best meal of my life, as simple as that!”. “Waiters move as though choreographed in a ballet” (“they even spotted that I was left handed and so laid out my place settings to suit me!”) and deliver “gastronomic paradise” overseen day-to-day by head chef, Paul Burgalières, who produces a 15-course menu for £250 per person, with much of the produce coming from Simon’s nearby ‘Our Farm’. Niggles? Concerns about prices have risen somewhat year on year. There is also a fear among a small minority that the experience risks becoming so “polished to perfection” as to be almost “perfunctory”. The main take-away though? “Simply the best!”