We took hardly any notes in England. Time has passed, and our heads are already on the upcoming trip to Japan. What follows is what stuck.
After SOURCE at Gilpin, we drove half an hour south to Cartmel, a small cosy village. Simon Rogan’s L’Enclume has three Michelin stars, as well as a shop, a farm and rooms spread out in the village.
We arrived to find a warm dining room with only a few tables occupied. Ours was a good one, inside the old forge, with iron hooks in the ceiling and, immediately behind us, a big anvil the restaurant is named after. We had the brand at our backs.
The cutlery is spot on, some hand-forged for the restaurant by the Dorset blacksmith Alex Pole. The staff wear proper uniforms, down to almost the same brown shoes on everyone. Only the laces differ in colour.
The food began solid, with tasty snacks. With the room half full, everything suggested this was going to be a good night.
After a while, the restaurant was full and started to feel like a pub on a Friday night. Nine tables in our section. Drop three and you have a restaurant.
A couple of times during the night, my wife dug out the earplugs she always keeps in her handbag. She needed a break from the noise. The room grew hotter as it filled, with no ventilation that we could feel.
The service was all over the place. Whoever stood closest to the pass carried the plates out, mumbled what they had learnt about the dish and hurried off. Almost like when they repeat your order at McDonald’s.
Three sommeliers worked the room. Three different people poured at our table, and there was no obvious system between them.
At one point, the decanting trolley was rolled out for a Coravin pour. I had never seen that before. A needle through the cork, a splash in the glass, then the trolley rattling back like a supermarket restock in the morning.
We went for one of the pairings. Every time afterwards, we say it is the last time. Marshmallow test, failed again.
The pours were the smallest we have seen in any wine pairing, and uneven, depending on who held the bottle. The first glass, they told us, was for the first two dishes.
After that, nobody said, so every glass became a guessing game. One dish or two?
Mostly whites that evening, the trend. A small glass of white sitting through two dishes in that heat is fine for the first and not for the second.
The smallest pours we have seen in any wine pairing.
Finish it before the second dish arrives and they simply take the glass away. Problem solved. Not ours. No top-up, not even a splash for the next dish. It felt cheap and became a sipping game.
We know the sommelier team here has a serious reputation. To us, the pairing felt chosen on paper rather than tasted next to the food.
Domaine Georges Vernay’s Les Chaillées de l’Enfer 2023, Condrieu as good as it gets, fresh and with the acidity in balance on its own. The name means the terraces of hell, and that is where the horseradish dish sent it.
The bitterness in the horseradish tilted the wine and pulled out flavours that had no business being there. We drank water with the dish and the wine afterwards.
Amon-Ra, Barossa Valley Unfiltered Shiraz 2006. Twenty years old, fifteen per cent alcohol, and it came through the Coravin needle warm and shut tight. A wine like that needs air and time. A small pour in a hot room gives it neither.
Then the water. We ordered sparkling for her and still for me, and got filtered tap water in carafes.
They could not remember which carafe went where. Still into sparkling, sparkling into still. I ended up with fizzy still water. A new category.
The night ended with the Anvil, the signature dessert. Caramel mousse with their own miso, apple and spruce, stamped with the anvil and sitting in a pool that looked like melting gold. I hate gold on food. This one I forgave, for the look.
We started the evening with the anvil behind us and finished with it on the plate. At least the brand was consistent.
Staff and kitchen seemed to be doing their best in a restaurant set for too many tables. Fewer tables and the people serving might have had a chance. They did not. And an irritated guest starts looking hard at what is on the plate.
Michelin on the plate. A busy gastropub around it.
Not every dish makes the review. The rest ends up on Instagram →
Almost every restaurant we have visited, in one list → The Restaurant List
