Lake Road Kitchen in South Lakeland

Lake Road Kitchen is a brilliant restaurant which produces creative and imaginative dishes using clever and interesting ingredients and techniques. The front of house staff are informative and fun, making the whole experience brilliant from start to finish. Can’t recommend it highly enough.

Very busy today but so nice to see that after the last 18 months. Bacon and sausage butty was gorgeous!! Friendly service and will call again next time in Ambleside.

We have returned all too soon from our honeymoon, but had the most fantastic time at Lake Road! The snails still haunt my dreams… also the halibut… and in fact the cod come to think of it! Service was fantastic, wine flights too, thank you so so much. We’ve already been recommending you guys to all and sundry.

Our expectations were high when we were offered a cancellation and took it gladly,although I had tried to book the eight course tasting menu and we were only offered twelve. Before we arrived we had to pay a large deposit and were sent an email stating that if we didn’t bring a mask we would be charged for one. A bit steep at £160 a head for food.On arrival the paint was peeling from the window frames and the frontage didn’t look loved. Once in the doorway we were instructed to wear masks and greeted as Mr and Mrs Marshall. We are a couple but not married so not a great start.The very in your face waiter began selling almost immediately and tried to upsell us to an extra dish. As if twelve wasn’t going to be enough.The ambiance is nice if you face the kitchen but if you face the street it’s basically a blank canvas. No linen service here. It’s very informal and you pour your own wine. Michelin star it aint.The food lacked any wow and was hugely protein hence very filling. The dishes were prepared with love and care but rather bland. I expect to have my taste buds wowed with explosions of flavour in a tasting menu. It’s not about the size. I began craving Some greenery. There were five or six fish courses and the cod was pretty much raw and see through in the middle. A heavily smoked duck broth was akin to bovril or a gravy.We began to dread the next course coming out as we were so full despite having skipped lunch. The only non meat or fish dish was very welcome Pine nuts in a peppery cheesy sauce. The heaviest savoury course (pork chop) came last but I was too full to eat it all. The three desert courses began with a delicious raspberry sorbet. So welcome after the heavy dishes and the only time I found myself describing any dish as delicious. Then followed a rich marscapone dish and finally a cheese cake both of which were just okAll in all the menu lacked balance,service was rather pretentious and toilets fit for a campervan. I have had so much better for less money and we left very disappointed. Much of this can be put right if customers are listened to and amendments made. At these prices people expect excellence and finesse from sincere servers who show a little humility. We did have one such young lady.

SettingA small, intimate restaurant with a friendly, semi formal setting. The staff a welcoming and professional.FoodWe had the 8 course set menu. Highlights were: the homemade sourdough bread, steamed halibut, pork with apple, and the blackberry dessert.Some of the portion sizes were bordering on microscopic, and although creative, I found some of the ingredient combinations unusual at best and odd for example pine nuts with pickled mushrooms.Disappointing dishes were the hot smoked salmon with tomato consommé, and the onion broth, and cured ham appetiser. The portion sizes were tiny. Appreciate the number of courses but still!I felt some courses were lacking in substance, the salmon needed some vegetable or herb garnish and I felt carbohydrates were lacking throughout!There was no menu to hand, so the waiter keeps informing you what each dish as it arrives. I like to see and read about each dish. It also would have been an opportunity to talk about the province of the food and the team’s background.DrinksThere was a limited choice of drinks to choose from with a QR code on the table for the menu drinks menu. There was a good choice however the prices were very expensive - £25 for a glass of white and £100 for a bottle!!!OverallWe enjoyed the food and experience. We felt safe as the staff were very thorough with Covid precautions limiting access to toilets and spacing tables out. They also provide wipes for hands.The meal was enjoyable but for us it didn’t quite deliver on expectations and for the price, we have had better sadly.

Excellent food, staff and service, outstanding cheesecake, words escape me, will be back

Had dinner there (4/9/21). Met our expectations completely.Bread was amazing, the 12 course tasting menu was well paced, considered and really demonstrated what Lake Road Kitchen is about. Service was great, friendly & informed. (More than happy to talk about some of the processes involved to create the dishes….. the fried chicken is definitely a masterpiece!)Wines are all available by glass or bottle, with a great selection.Highly recommend when passing through Ambleside!Thank you!

Brilliant restaurant in Ambleside, very much worth a visit when in the area. A small, intimate setting with friendly and knowledgeable staff. Without any doubt a rival to their Michelin starred neighbour.The larger 12 course tasting menu is exceptional – imaginative, artistic and of course delicious! Excellent additional course of Foie gras is available and I would highly recommend. There are two desert additional courses too – a very nice 7 option cheese board and some truly original vanilla ice cream (being a glutton, but we went for both as opposed to choosing just one and both very amazing)!The wine pairing is one of the very best we’ve had too – some real thought has gone into it, with wine that actually matches the food (alas this is one of my bugbears with many elite restaurants at the minute; all too often the known wines have been selected, as opposed to a real pairing). If you do attend and are not driving, I’d say go with their wine pairing without doubt.I’m already looking forward to visiting again the next time I’m in Ambleside. Please note that you have to book via the application on their website and they only accept cash tips (always having plastic, I was caught out by this, so bear this in mind).

I'm lucky enough to eat in a lot of high end restaurants and every now and then a restaurant comes along that elevates itself to a point that it indelibly leaves a mark that means you want to shout it from the rooftops and tell people how good it is.Lake Road Kitchen is one of those places.Photos of food will never do this justice as that's only part of the story. The room is so much more special than the exterior, feeling slightly private Scandi/ski lodge like whilst having the warmth of peeking into someone's own kitchen. The front of house staff work harmoniously with each other and the kitchen, knowing the details of the produce, the cooking and the wine inside out. Restaurants outside of the major cities can suffer from staff who don't have the same level of professionalism as the food but that is not the case here.The food is deceptively skilful marrying the joy of the best comfort food you could wish for with perfect technical skill and fun twists on things that you thought you knew but then Lake Road Kitchen toyed with them! Most importantly, the flavour that comes through makes sure that your taste buds leave as happy as the rest of you!Don't go expecting airs, graces and awkwardness. Don't go expecting 10 knives and forks and food that looks like it's been on a diet before it's got to you. This is a roller coaster of joyful plates! Do go and support a local restaurant and staff producing dishes (if you're anything like me!) that you'll want to tuck into again and again.Lake Road Kitchen proves to me how formulaic and misguided Michelin stars are. If ever there was a restaurant that I 'd want to make a detour for, it's here!

An absolutely fantastic experience. Very unassuming from the outside, you enter a world of surprises. We had booked this as a special treat to crown our time in the Lake District and we couldn’t have been happier with our choice!The service was lovely, taking us through our 8 course menu at the perfect pace, we never felt rushed or waiting for the next dish to appear. The chefs came out regularly to present the dishes themselves which made for a very personable experience. We had food we never even heard off and everything was absolutely spot on, from presentation to inventiveness to flavours everything was packed into these dishes.The wine pairing was also fabulous, the wines were surprising and unusual and matched the dishes perfectly, sometimes being the highlight, but also having the confidence of just supporting the dishes to make them stand out even more. A special mention to the Luxembouguish wine which was a complete surprise to find here in the Lake District, being from Luxembourg myself this is the first time I have come across this abroad.All in all a great experience !