The story
Set above Lake Windermere in a bowl of Lakeland fellside, The Samling is a Georgian house where the cooking matches the views. The restaurant holds a Michelin Star, awarded in 2017 under former Head Chef Nick Edgar and retained since, reflecting a kitchen that draws deeply on the surrounding landscape.
The current Executive Head Chef, Robby Jenks, brings a strong pedigree. He spent five and a half years working with Michael Caines at the two Michelin-starred Gidleigh Park and previously worked at Amberley Castle. His cooking is grounded in the produce grown and reared on the hotel’s own 67-acre estate. The kitchen gardens, chickens, quails and Mangalitsa pigs all feed directly into the menu, making the modern cuisine here a true reflection of the Lake District.
The restaurant itself is a glass-walled space with floor-to-ceiling views over the lake and the Coniston Old Man range. The atmosphere is calm and low-key, with attentive but unobtrusive service. Alongside the main dining room, a Chef’s Table offers a more intimate experience, and the wine list has earned international recognition, including an AA Notable Wine List award and a two-star accolade from the World of Fine Wine.
For a combination of standout views and serious cooking, wrapped in understated luxury, The Samling is hard to beat.
Recognition
Ambience
Details
History
4 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence
High quality cooking
The Samling sits in splendid, immaculate isolation above Windermere. It is a sumptuous place that nods in contemporary style to Lakeland surroundings that you can enjoy without getting wet and muddy; invigorating views of mere and mountain spread beyond the glass-walled dining room, and the seriously cushioned lounge is warmed with a weather-defying real fire. Service is flawless, if at times a little whispered, and the cooking of executive chef Robby Jenks and his team is deliciously refined. The four-course lunch is good value (you pay more than double for seven courses at dinner), though the quietness one autumn Saturday lunchtime suggests that memo has not been received. Sourdough comes tucked up warm in white linen in a silver bowl; its accompanying butter sits on a stone, fashionably. A fragile tartlet is a few bites of walloping umami savouriness from mushrooms – ketchup, duxelles, hen of the woods, tiny little shimeji, a tuile – and the aniseedy nudge of tarragon emulsion brightens the ‘shroomy forest. Saffron is the dominant flavour in a dish of skate wing, spiralled round a gentle shellfish mousse in a sauce split with dill oil. Topped with a lacy saffron tuile that's dotted with Jerusalem artichoke and ditsy nasturtium leaves, it is a thing of golden beauty and earthy flavour. Middle White pork is treated with such tenderness that a piece of pancetta-wrapped loin becomes meltingly soft, so too a square of belly slow-cooked in beer vinegar; both get on well with the sweet-sharp seasonality of pear, parsnip and red cabbage. Finish with a classy apple dessert that uses fruit from the Samling’s orchard. A meringue cup contains minuscule dices of apple as well as almond biscuit, the whole surrounded by a featherlight mousse coated in white chocolate. Tonka-bean ice cream alongside is sublime in its nutty, vanilla-suggesting flavour. Wine-lovers take note: temptation ahead. The renowned list, vast in scope, is fat with bottles from the world’s great vineyards, and prices reflect this. There are slightly more ordinary sips – called ‘The Forty’ after their price tag – but it somehow comes as no surprise that three bottles have five-figure tickets, a bottle of La Romanée Grand Cru Monopole 2002 topping the lot at a mind-boggling £16,000.
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