Eating & Drinking

Our local is the Swinside Inn, and it’s just ten minutes’ walk from Stair Cottage. It serves good, honest pub food in a friendly and traditional environment, with outdoor dining and fire pit. Watch out for music festivals in summer and October and fireworks around November 5.

Also in the valley, Littletown Farm, beneath Catbells, serves teas from Easter to October and also has a drinks licence.

The café at Lingholm Estate, on your right as you drive to Portinscale, is excellent, and serves wonderful breakfasts (alongside the lovely afternoon teas), and The Chalet, in Portinscale, which is licensed does lunches, snacks and teas during the day.

The Farmer’s Arms, in Portinscale, is a cosy local with a selection of real ales and bistro bar menu.

Braithwaite offers a choice of pubs and the village shop (open daily except Christmas Day) does the very best home-made sausage rolls and other pastries. The Royal Oak (Jennings) is a traditional pub, serving hearty pub food. The Coledale Inn is a Victorian-Georgian “country inn”, with two bars, home-made food, real ales, restaurant and beer garden. Middle Ruddings, to the north of the village, is a country inn, serving meals each evening, plus Saturday and Sunday lunch. It boasts an interesting selection of both local and more exotic beers, and says it never has the same beer twice.

Grange, in Borrowdale, has two good cafés, both with outdoor seating and one of them – Bridge Cottage – overlooks the River Derwent. The Borrowdale Gates is a country house hotel on the edge of the village and its fine local produce menu can be enjoyed by non-residents in the evening whilst its’ afternoon teas are delicious and beautifully presented.

Buttermere is just a 15-minute drive over Newlands Pass and boasts two pubs – the Fish and the Bridge – both of which do bar meals and are geared up for walkers. The Croft House Farm Café and Syke Farm are also very good.

Nearer Lorton, the Kirkstile Inn has fantastic food and a great atmosphere and has been previously named Cumbria Pub of the Year.

For that special occasion, The Cottage in the Wood, on Whinlatter Pass, has a well-earned Michelin Star. The Bistro at the Lakes Distillery, near the north end of Bassenthwaite Lake is very good and try The Pheasant, nearby, which is now part of the Inn Collection group. Just over the road, at Bassenthwaite Lake Station, you can eat breakfast, lunch or tea aboard the Orient Express, as it appeared in the film of the Agatha Christie classic.

In Keswick, there are all the choices you would expect for a town of its size, with a wide range of European and more exotic cuisines. Morrels, on Lake Road, is well spoken of, as is Lakeland Spice Cuisine. There are a great many pubs, but we would single out the Dog And Gun (Great Outdoors 2014 Pub of the Year), which positively buzzes (although its recent refurbishment has not been universally welcomed by all traditionalists) and the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. This is a J D Wetherspoon house created in the old court buildings and you can sit on the Bench, in the cells or the witness stand. The George is one of the oldest pubs in Keswick and it would be a pity to miss a pint at The Wainwright if you’ve been following his walking routes…..