This chic mini-resort in Cumbria is serving up food that’s much less glamorous than the decor
While searching along unlit, winding byroads for Another Place, Ullswater’s new multimillion-pound “lifestyle hotel”, I realised that I’ll always feel conflicted when the Lake District tries to do “modern” hospitality. The lion’s share of Lakeland hotels are a paean to chintz, antimacassars and joy-free service, and they’re this way for a reason. Most are family-owned, decaying piles on fellsides, and battered by sideways sleet for 10 months of the year. Most require umpteen million quids’ worth of love to modernise to a standard anything a Soho House member could tolerate. And most are in the hands of locals lacking the nerve or impetus to modernise, yet simultaneously furious when tourists want keto-friendly avo toast with fast wifi to document their soft southern faces scoffing it.
Yes, the Lakes has The Samling, The Forest Side, L’Enclume and a few other Michelin-chasing, artsy-fartsy spots, but this level of vision is rare and, crucially, there is no middle ground. While Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire is cluttered daily with moneyed millennials and fancy families riding bikes, drinking Old Tom martinis and eating vegan wood-roasted cauliflower with roscoff onion, my home county Cumbria draws a blank. Another Place – stupid, confusing name, if you ask me – is an attempt to fill the gap, transforming the snoozesome Rampsbeck Hotel into a 40-room mini-resort with a spa, 20m pool, plus the option of kayaking and sailing on the lake. Oh, and wild swimming – the new cool, southern term for doing the breaststroke anywhere that doesn’t smell of anti-verruca disinfectant.
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