It may have a Michelin star and a ‘world’s best fine dining’ gong to boot, but this Lake District venture has not been swayed from its core purpose: to serve exquisite, hyper-local fare with verve
Plaudits and gongs are a double-edged sword. Clearly, it’s lovely to receive them, yet, in the case of the Old Stamp House in the Lake District, chef Ryan Blackburn woke one morning last year to find himself in charge of “The Best Fine Dining Restaurant in the World”, according to the TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice awards, a title it won again this year. The name of the award is deliciously Douglas Adams and, as the booking line went ballistic, you wouldn’t blame Blackburn for thinking, “What have we done?” The restaurant may already have had a Michelin star, among other awards, for serving fine, painstakingly orchestrated, hyper-local Cumbrian produce, but it had never claimed to rival the likes of Noma in Copenhagen, with its dozens of staff and £600-plus a head menu. I’m a firm believer, however, that small and homespun is often more beautiful, and the Old Stamp House, which opened in 2014, is very much a family affair: front of house is Craig, Ryan’s brother, and he’ll be pouring your wine. It’s intimate, too, occupying two rooms in a building where William Wordsworth once worked as the distributor of stamps for Westmorland.
This is a restaurant that exudes cosy, self-effacing charm, rather than slick, drilled service and a lecture with every course. On arrival, a letter from the chef awaits you at the table, explaining, and I paraphrase, that waffling on in your ear for each of the nine or so courses about ingredients, techniques and the inside leg measurement of the man who hand-dived the scallop may spoil your enjoyment of the food, so he’s decided to shut up and write it all in this letter. That introduction is followed by approximately 600 neatly typed words on Walney and Roa Island scallops, the small fishing fleets of Barrow and Whitehaven, Grizedale Forest stags and the Herdwick lamb that’s farmed just five miles up the road at Yew Tree Farm.
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