top restaurants and gastro pubs...

Simon Rogan, the chef and owner of Michelin starred L'Enclume in Cartmel has every right to feel proud of himself. He's been working away developing his menu and at the same time opening a new restaurant, called Rogan & Company, just a two minute walk away from L'Enclume. Each year the Which Good Food Guide rates over 1000 of the UK's restaurants. L'Enclume gets ranked as one of the top 14 restaurants in the UK alongside the likes of Petrus, Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons run by Ramond Blanc and the equally famous Le Gavroche owned by Michael Roux Jnr. Known for his own distinctive style, Simon even has his own take on that famous Cartmel desert. It involves a succession of five gels - he's called it "stiffy tacky pudding". Twenty four of Cumbria's eateries make it into this year's Good Food Guide.

Also recently celebrating is the Punch Bowl Inn in Crosthwaite. They were named Pub of the year in Michelin's Eating Out in Pubs 2009 guide. This guide, listing some 563 pubs in Great Britain and Ireland, praised the Punch Bowl for its "delightful rural setting" as well as its community spirit and use of local produce. So you really are spoilt for choice in Cumbria. Artisan-food.com has its own guide to the Cumbrian eating scene. 

Content and photography supplied by www.asrtisan-food.com, funded by Distinctly Cumbrian.