Telephone: 015395 36362
Address: Cavendish Street, Cartmel, Cumbria
Rating: 17/20
It is a truth universally acknowledged that nothing gives one's friends greater pleasure than seeing you brought low in public. So, when Tad, Wendy, my daughter and I sashayed through the doors of L'Enclume and it was Tad and Wendy who were welcomed with the warmth of instant recognition and importance while I was passed over with mere professional smoothness, it did not go unremarked, celebrated and generally hooted about. "What price the country's most formidable restaurant critic now?" was the tenor of their hilarity. The words "A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country" leapt unbidden to my mind.
Cartmel is not the first place I would think of finding a restaurant with Michelin aspirations. It is far from the nearest urban mass, tucked away among the stone walls and winding lanes at the bottom end of the Lake District. It's a small village of great charm, famous for producing the world's finest sticky toffee pudding, for its races and for its Priory. Perhaps, one day, it'll be famous for L'Enclume.
L'Enclume means anvil, and the grand hooping wheel just inside the door and an anvil are reminders of the building's smithy past. But the beams have been cleaned up, the walls painted white, the floor flagged with new stone. The lighting is flattering and there's a garden at the back where, in summer, you'll be able to settle and steep yourself in the menu. There are bedrooms attached, too, designed with an eye on the luxury market.
Simon Rogan, chef, patron and man of ambitions, has gone on record as saying that he's aiming for two stars, but will be content with one for now. That tells you something about the style of the place and its food. Sadly, the 16-course, £90 Taste and Texture menu was not yet available, because it had on it some dishes that sounded stonking - sweet woodruff jelly, cucumber, flaky crab and caramelised calamari; pavé of Angus beef, parsnip and star anise purée and coulis of apple. It also had some that sounded bonkers - gelée of duck, caraway parfait, sweetcorn bonbons; scrambled egg with hyssop nd poached apricots. However, some of the combinations, as well as the starring roles given to forgotten herbs and lesser spices, indicated an inquiring mind and palate. But late winter not being the kindest time for herbs, the menu wasn't ready yet.
So we made do with such dishes as terrine of salmon with rosemary and pineapple; roast oxtail gayette, turbot and star anise; roast scallops and langoustines, carrot and cardamom emulsion; rump of lamb "en croûte de sel", flageolet purée and Niçoise garnish; red mullet Trouvillaise, roast shallots, artichokes and sage; chocolate "molleux" with juniper-infused ice cream and banyuls syrup; and jasmine creams with pink grapefruit and confit cucumber. I haven't listed everything we ate, because that would leave no room for comment.
Some of those combinations may sound bizarre, but on closer inspection turned out less so, either because they tasted tickety-boo or because the less expected item was not so dominating as its billing suggested. In common with a certain style of haute cuisine, several dishes consisted of several parts - a square of duck confit with a sesame seed crust, a neat arrangement of breast, a slice of seared foie gras - all related by origin rather than by form. There were several examples of spumy sauces. There were slashes of sauces and geometric arrangements and odd-shaped plates. To the eye, the dishes dazzled.
To the palate, well, if they didn't quite dazzle, they didn't distress, either. Some were very good - the scallop and langoustine with carrot and cardamom was a delightful dance of sweetnesses; oxtail and turbot was much more than a variation on turf'n'surf, the fine, tense chunk of fish taking richness and succulence from the meat, with the perfumed star anise lightening both; the astringent juniper in the ice cream tempering the richness of the chocolate.
Others missed either because they seemed pointlessly elaborate - the Trouvillaise was a kind of sausage, the outside made of red mullet fillets and stuffed with a fishy forcemeat - or through inattention to particular details (thick layer of fat under the skin on the disk breast; compacted, dry confit) or plain oddness (a flan of anchovy with a roast sole fillet and poultry juices was more like a mousse than what I think of as a flan). And, as a general point, the sauces needed to be more clearly differentiated and perhaps pushed harder, intensified.
Rogan is a talented chef with a sound grounding in the grammar of French haute cuisine and a vision of much originality. It was early weeks at L'Enclume, and so perhaps unfair to expect the kitchen to be in top gear. However, full prices were being charged - £225 for the four of us, including some champagne and a bottle of something red, the name of which temporarily escapes me. Now, that's £56 a head, which is an ambitious price. I'm not saying that it isn't worth it - it is. I just hope there's enough business to sustain it.
· Open Lunch, Tues-Sun, 12 noon-1.45pm; dinner, Tues-Sat, 7-9pm. Lunch, £19.50 for three courses; dinner, £29 for three courses, £75 for eight courses.
