Plaudits and gongs are a double-edged sword. Clearly, it’s lovely to receive them, yet, in the case of the Old Stamp House in the Lake District, chef Ryan Blackburn woke one morning last year to find himself in charge of “The Best Fine Dining Restaurant in the World”, according to the TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice awards, a title it won again this year. The name of the award is deliciously Douglas Adams and, as the booking line went ballistic, you wouldn’t blame Blackburn for thinking, “What have we done?” The restaurant may already have had a Michelin star, among other awards, for serving fine, painstakingly orchestrated, hyper-local Cumbrian produce, but it had never claimed to rival the likes of Noma in Copenhagen, with its dozens of staff and £600-plus a head menu. I’m a firm believer, however, that small and homespun is often more beautiful, and the Old Stamp House, which opened in 2014, is very much a family affair: front of house is Craig, Ryan’s brother, and he’ll be pouring your wine. It’s intimate, too, occupying two rooms in a building where William Wordsworth once worked as the distributor of stamps for Westmorland.
This is a restaurant that exudes cosy, self-effacing charm, rather than slick, drilled service and a lecture with every course. On arrival, a letter from the chef awaits you at the table, explaining, and I paraphrase, that waffling on in your ear for each of the nine or so courses about ingredients, techniques and the inside leg measurement of the man who hand-dived the scallop may spoil your enjoyment of the food, so he’s decided to shut up and write it all in this letter. That introduction is followed by approximately 600 neatly typed words on Walney and Roa Island scallops, the small fishing fleets of Barrow and Whitehaven, Grizedale Forest stags and the Herdwick lamb that’s farmed just five miles up the road at Yew Tree Farm.
The letter quietly screams a love of modern Cumbria and old Cumberland, but it also taught me a dozen lessons along the way. No, I did not know that cumberland sauce was invented for the Hanoverian prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. Or that one farmer in the Eden Valley is now selling excellent, refined rapeseed oil that’s perfect for dipping bread made with Last Wolf beer from Cartmel. The Old Stamp House is not one of the Lake District’s many soulless, oversubscribed dining spots that nail up a few paintings of Blencathra, make a cursory nod to Beatrix Potter and rob you blind for reheated Aunt Bessie roast potatoes. This is a brave and sentimental project that has clearly won a lot of hearts.
The menu is fancy, yet ultimately hearty. Opening treats of black pudding bonbons dressed with pickled apple and light, whipped beetroot macarons filled with duck liver give way to Herdwick hogget wrapped in a heavenly bun and served with a sipping broth that is essentially a small jug of exquisite lamb gravy. A cleansing, Scandi-feeling bowl of Arctic char arrives, rolled ornately and prettily strewn with vivid-orange cured roe, apple, cucumber and horseradish. It’s delightful and delicate. Then a warming hug of potted shrimps, a large, luscious scallop in a curried mead velouté and a generous roast cod loin in mussel and vermouth sauce. You will not leave this place hungry, even if you don’t inhale that beer bread with Winter Tarn Dairy butter. The final hurrah of the savoury section was loin of Cumbrian red deer with a clever, celeriac-based twist on ravioli stuffed with hen of the wood and served with a truffle sauce; lest that isn’t enough, they also send out a heavenly spin on cottage pie made with the rich, braised shank of the same deer topped with a yeasty celeriac froth. It’s the kind of dish that’s both dainty and would also feasibly power you across Haystacks.
There are two puddings: a sweet, creamy, relatively light one made with meadowsweet, raspberries and a tiny nod towards local gingerbread, plus a heroic, high and mighty pear-and-bramble delice souffle that is a work of art. The sad thing about souffles is how rapidly they go from exquisite beauty to destruction. They are the food world’s mayflies, living their very best life for only a matter of moments, before disappearing down the throat of a food critic, who everyone is too polite to tell has smears of the Valrhona chocolate and almond sauce on her nose.
The Old Stamp House has won prizes for being very romantic, which it is, but I took a 15-year-old relative and she thoroughly loved the food and the unfussy but still low-key fabulous atmosphere. I cannot say empirically if this is the best restaurant in the entire universe, but I know it’s taken the role to heart and is having a very good go.
The Old Stamp House, Church Street, Ambleside, Cumbria, 01539 432775. Open lunch Thu-Sat, 12.30-1.30pm (last orders), dinner Wed-Sat, 6-8.30pm (last orders). Lunch £55, dinner £95, both plus drinks and service.
The next episode in the fourth series of Grace’s Comfort Eating podcast is released on Tuesday 25 October. Listen to it here.
