On my way to Hidden River Cafe, which I’d booked for my birthday breakfast, I was reminded that when a Cumbrian warns you that somewhere’s “a bit off the beaten track and in the middle of nowhere”, you should take them seriously. They really mean it.

And Hidden River Cafe is indeed hiding, albeit in my favourite part of Cumbria – the forgotten, untouched bit that visitors tend to ignore in their excitement to see the Lake District. This overlooks the glorious patch of almost untouched nothingness to the north-east of the Lakes that starts a few miles outside Carlisle, where you can skim along the southern side of the Scottish border, down miles of the narrowest, puddliest country lanes, passing through villages with names such as Catlowdy, Penton, Haggbeck and Bewcastle; names that, when I was a child, would trip off my grandmother’s tongue in broad Cumberland as we set off to visit cousins who lived all around this area.

“Your great-aunt Joyce frae’ Catlowdy isn’t in ower’ grand fettle the noo,” she’d say. “She’s ga’arn into sek little room.” I’ll translate: “Joyce isn’t feeling very well and she’s losing weight, too.” The place had its own language, and though this was at least 40 years ago, as Charles and I drove towards Longtown, it felt almost unchanged.

The satnav quibbled many times en route, and after a second three-point turn by a long-abandoned graveyard, you feel sceptical that there really is Persian hummus with chimichurri sauce and tempura Tenderstem broccoli with a hoisin dip close by.

On arriving at the pretty cabin cafe, however, set in miles of rolling green nothingness and ordering the monkfish scampi with warm new potato salad, you might also notice that 5G is not an option here, and that the gorgeous cabins, should you happen to be staying overnight, do not have Wi-Fi, because the Hidden River Cafe is all about “your family really enjoying being off the grid”. That’s something to tell your teenagers while they try to strangle you, or maybe placate them with the vegetarian-friendly portobello mushroom burger with grilled halloumi.

The place is the rather ingenious work of dairy farmer Rob Carr and his wife Rachel, alongside local chef Thomas Towle. Rob designed the five beautiful cabins made out of whole trees that are stacked skilfully on top of each other along the bank of the River Lyne – a river so well-hidden, I managed to live nearby for 18 years and never once heard it mentioned. After the cabins, plus a barn where they hold weddings, came the cafe, which is itself inside another cabin.

No wonder my Cumbrian friends were so excited, recommending that I get up here sharpish for bowls of mussels with cider and pancetta, and for wagyu steaks with good, punchy rosemary fries. Hidden River Cafe’s menu is ever-changing, hearty, imaginative and surprisingly global: its current offering includes Moroccan lamb on herby coriander couscous, grilled chicken souvlaki and soft-shell crab with pickled samphire. That said, every time I’ve checked recently, the approach to feeding guests seems to have pivoted slightly, with a pizza menu and sometimes curries featuring, too.

My brother swears by the fabulous Sunday lunch, with featherblade of Cumbrian beef and yorkies as big as your face, and I’ve heard reports of rib-sticking afternoon teas of ham hock terrine with piccalilli and french toast, raspberry ripple muffins and, of course, homemade scones. But, as I said, I went for my birthday breakfast, and although it may seem odd to write about the joys of an enormous vegetarian fry-up, there is an unparalleled splendour in tackling, as your first meal of the day, a plate of good hash browns, fried eggs, baked beans and decent vegetarian sausages with a round of white, buttered, toasted, Mother’s Pride-style bread. Eat big first thing, set your intentions – that’s what I say.

Charles, displaying his southern, metropolitan tendencies, wanted poached eggs and mashed avocado on sourdough. We were the first customers, arriving brightly at 10.02am into a deserted cabin, so we ate to the sound of torrential rain battering the roof and pelting the fields around us. Perfect.

“So where are we, exactly?” asked Charles, who had driven here, but was still none the wiser.

“We’re sort of near the Scottish border,” I told him, “but very definitely in England. Sort of near Hadrian’s Wall, but not really near anywhere else apart from Longtown, not far from the main road to Langholm, but if you carry on east, we’d be in Once Brewed.”

“This means nothing to me,” he said, sounding like Midge Ure. I finished the extra toast with butter and strawberry jam, knowing that, while places such as this exist, it will be a long time before I, like great-aunt Joyce, go into “sek little room”.

• Hidden River Cafe Longtown, Carlisle, Cumbria, 01228 791318. Open all week, 9am-8.30pm (6pm Sun). About £30 a head, plus drinks and service.

• Episode four of the second series of Grace’s Comfort Eating podcast is released on 16 November. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.