The story
Paul Leonard leads the kitchen at Forest Side in Windermere with a focus on Lake District cuisine that shifts according to the seasons. His work recently earned 23 National Restaurant Awards alongside a Michelin Star and a Green Star for Sustainability. Ninety percent of the produce arrives from farms within ten miles, while the hotel’s own garden supplies vegetables at their peak. This method supports a detailed modern British cooking style that highlights local provenance through restrained seasoning.
Diners navigate a structured meal that begins with snacks served alongside a leather roll up holding the necessary cutlery. The courses feature Dexter beef tartare paired with whipped bone marrow and morning-picked oxalis, reflecting the standards of Cumbrian cooking. A playful touch appears later with a supremely crispy Waldorf salad bite, while vegetarian guests encounter salt-baked kohlrabi resting in a seaweed and Granny Smith apple broth.
The dining room sits inside a historic Victorian mansion designed to draw the surrounding nature indoors. Sunlight fills the space above bespoke tables crafted from reclaimed timber and steel, while a sommelier counter built from a windblown garden tree anchors the centre. Large windows frame views across a slate terrace toward open lawns and distant Lakeland fells. Colourful earthenware plates made by local ceramicists complete the setting.
Recognition
Ambience
Details
History
High quality cooking
From the outside, Forest Side imposes, stamping no-nonsense Victorian authority onto a steep fellside near Grasmere. Step inside, however, and you’re fast-forwarded to the present day. There are respectful memories of history in the shape of lofty ceilings, preserved architectural details and tweed-waistcoated waiters, but the setting is fresh and contemporary. Rough-hewn tables are simply decorated, so too the white walls and vast windows. Seats are comfortable, and floors classily bare, but chintz-free style comes at the expense of sound-absorbing softness so it can be a little noisy. Perhaps that is all the better to focus on Paul Leonard’s fine cooking, which delivers an experience that for one recent diner was ‘breathtaking’, for another ‘truly A-class’. Portions are restrained, presentation is precise, the value for money of a four-course lunch (plus extras) undeniable. Warm brioche, thyme-flecked and oomphed with a Marmite glaze, is irresistible, while the standout of the three snacks is toasted brioche with truffled cream cheese and smoked eel. Vigour continues. Whipped raw-milk Cumbrian goat's cheese – Ingot, from Holker Farm Dairy– comes with confit and crisp Jerusalem artichoke, fresh apple and toasted yeast crumb; it’s followed by a savoury little rockpool of lightly aerated buttermilk/mussel sauce from which peep mussels, ribbons of pickled cuttlefish and smoked roe. This being the game season, a small but tenderly roasted breast of local partridge makes a distinguished main course. Its juices are the base for a glorious sauce, its leg is a mini-meatball, and the flavours are amplified by hen of the woods flecked with crisp onions, as well as the belting umami of cep purée. A pretty dessert is all about the cherry – puréed, frozen into a sorbet, set into a glistening crimson gel, its sweetness balanced by a mild cheese panna cotta and salted granola. A sugar-doused doughnut – cherry-filled, of course – provides the playful accompaniment. The forward-thinking wine list champions natural and biodynamic bottles from less familiar vineyards, so the sommelier's excellent advice might steer you towards a rounded but fresh Grüner Veltliner from Austrian makers Martin and Anna Arndorfer, or the earthy welly of a Thracian Mavrud that works a treat with the partridge. Both are offered by the glass on a line-up that packs interest into 125ml pours from £9.
5 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence
Location
Nearby
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