"The wonderful kitchen garden gives a great sense of the food ambition at Forest Side where the restaurant received a Michelin star within a year of the hotel opening in 2016. Cumbria’s writ large on the menu, with even the names — the Bait Menu (three courses), the La’al ‘Un (six courses) and the Grand ‘Un (ten courses) rather giving the game away. Head chef is keen forager, Kevin Tickle (once of L’Enclume) and behind the scenes there’s much pickling, curing, and smoking of food. Combine that with Cumbrian produce: dishes like venison pastrami, smoked juniper yoghurt, Cans na Tire (cheese), and cucurbit relish; Herdwick hogget loin; aged Shorthorn rib; fermented eryngii, smokey morels, charcoal, and dittander; and l’al onions ‘glazed in our mead’ with smoked potato custard. Plenty of lyrical phrases have been written about Forest Side, which is fitting given that William Wordsworth once lived down the road." - Christian Dymond