Providing butter at a spreadable temperature is a skill all hoteliers should have mastered. The rarity with which this simple task is accomplished, however, means that when you do come across a warm, yielding pat of butter, you sit up and pay attention. Clearly, someone is sweating the small stuff. That would be Kath and Liam Berney, owners of Cottage in the Wood (CITW), a whitewashed 16th-century restaurant with rooms in England’s only mountain forest, Whinlatter, west of Keswick.

“Do you prefer your scrambled eggs creamy or set?” asks Kath, before serving a terrific breakfast with woodland mushrooms and bacon on sourdough. This attentiveness continues throughout (fresh milk and homemade biscuits in bedrooms; warnings about midges if windows are left open at night; games, books and walking guides in the lounge), yet it never feels oppressive. In contrast to more forbidding Lake District gastro destinations, Liam and Kath offer a warm, breezy experience. “We see ourselves as a foodie bolthole,” says Liam, “but we want to be accessible.”

Accessibility is relative, but CITW’s cottage rooms (a little boxy, shower power domestic, not that well noise insulated but offering sound comfort), start at £110 B&B. There are four more glamorous rooms, too: the garden room looks a doozy.

But the real stars of the show here are nature and Rich Collingwood, the new-ish head chef at the now 15-year-old CITW. The conservatory dining room feels as though it is embedded in the mountains, ferns and streams (cleverly rendered in miniature in the table decorations), and red squirrels occasionally scamper across the terrace. Collingwood’s exquisite plates of light, clean food and intense flavours are as refreshing as the country air.

There’s some technical, molecular stuff, such as cherries and raspberries filled with hyper-real fruit gels, and a L’Enclume-like use of curious ingredients: dill emulsion, wood sorrel granita, a brilliant strawberry gazpacho. There’s a little New Nordic fermentation and foraging, too. Crucially, this creativity is underpinned by a precise understanding of how components interact on the plate.

Such cooking is often ruined by clumsiness, but here there is no over-elaboration. The elements of each dish are proportionate, to the millimetre (do not expect a trencherman’s feed!). Collingwood’s scallop ceviche, with salty, funky fermented turnip, apple and dots of roe cream, has real clarity of flavour – as has his ornate plate of smoked eel, intense eel jelly, caviar and segments of Jersey Royal. The centrepiece of the tasting menu is that iconic Lakeland product, Herdwick hogget (crispy breast, loin, sweetbreads), with burnt aubergine purée (like super-boosted baba ganoush), sheep’s yoghurt, mint oil and pickled artichoke. It is like the hogget has been on holiday to North Africa and found its old va-va-voom.

These many dish elements are described tableside by the staff, but it is not a test. No one will quiz you. Likewise, Liam can give you chapter and verse on his small-producer and organic wines, or leave you to get sloshed. Your call. And you don’t have to buy into the pseudoscience of biodynamic viticulture to concede that some of Liam’s choices in that field taste fantastic.

CITW sits on Magic Hill (so named because a downhill slope appears to go uphill due to the surrounding land). It’s a fitting address. This is a cocoon of miraculous comfort and pleasure.
• Accommodation was provided by Cottage in the Wood (017687 78409, thecottageinthewood.co.uk), doubles from £110 B&B, three-course lunch/dinner £30/£45, six-course testing menu £65 For more information on Cumbria, see golakes.co.uk

Ask a local

Mary Elliot, house manager, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick

• Activity

On fine days (there are some!), we’re outside with the children, walking up mountains or messing about jetty jumping and paddleboarding on Derwentwater. Hire paddleboards from Derwentwater Marina and Nichol End Marine, whose cafe has fantastic pizzas and the world’s largest scones.

• Walking
In terms of mountains, Latrigg is a quick, easy walk from town. Walla Crag is slightly longer, and if we’re feeling very energetic, we go all the way over Falcon Crag and down into Borrowdale to Shepherd’s Café at High Lodore Farm, and catch the open-top bus back.

• Entertainment
Alhambra is a gorgeous 1914 cinema. Derwent Pencil Museum is always worth a visit and Keswick Museum & Art Gallery is great for wet afternoons.• Theatre by the Lake’s summer season runs until November 4