“Half the restaurant is foreign now, three-star chasers-the sort of people we want.” “We’ve been filling up with people from all over the world,” says Rogan. Early this year his complex, layered flavors and pristine raw materials helped L’Enclume earn a third Michelin star, the first restaurant in the area to reach that pinnacle. and the experimental six-seat chef’s counter Aulis, where dishes in the final stages of development for L’Enclume are first tested on guests. (Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck accomplished a similar feat not far from London when it debuted in the village of Bray a few years earlier.) After his initial foray, Rogan opened two additional restaurants in Cartmel: the more casual, Michelin-star Rogan & Co. In the two decades since L’Enclume unveiled its first tasting menus mixing his own locally grown ingredients with the sort of cutting-edge kitchen tools and techniques that were revolutionizing fine dining, Rogan has shown Britain the epicurean potential of this verdant corner of England’s far north. “The first thing we planted were radishes, the easiest thing in the world to grow, because the radishes here were crap,” he says. So, Rogan got to work on growing food for himself. With much of the arable land devoted to livestock, the best fruits and vegetables turned out to all be imported from elsewhere. “We were a real team back in those days,” says Rogan of his wife, who has stepped back from day-to-day operations. He called it L’Enclume, “anvil” in French (the antique anvils installed in the dining room came with the place), channeling the country restaurants in France that inspired him originally, with the chef in the kitchen, his spouse running the dining room and welcoming guests. Here he bet everything on the launch of a new destination for modern seasonal cooking in a former 13th-century blacksmith’s workshop along the River Eea.

Toxic Avenger? This New Whiskey Brand Is Making Hooch Inspired by B-Moviesīritish chef Simon Rogan was expecting a similar bounty in 2002, when he and his wife, Penny, sold their earthly possessions and moved to the small village of Cartmel, some 80 miles south of the Roman Empire border with Scotland at Hadrian’s Wall. Stellar Whiskey? Why The Glenlivet Sent Barley to Spaceįowl! Turkey Prices Are Expected to Hit Record Highs This Thanksgiving

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