At Birchall we pride ourselves on delivering teas of exceptional quality and flavor. Only the best ingredients and production techniques are used to create our blends. It was these great values that we were looking for when selecting the restaurants to feature in our food and drink recommendations for the North West.
Our second featured restaurant, The Forest Side has those values at its heart. Sourcing food directly from the Kitchen garden they’re dedicated to extracting flavour from the cumbrian landscape. Opening its doors for the first time this month it truly is a food and drink highlight and we urge you to give it a try.
The Forest Side, Grasmere
Fairytale gothic mansion, Forest side is the fulfillment of a romantic dream. Set in the magical Lake District landscape of Wordsworth’s Grasmere, this beautiful house charmed visitors for over a century before falling into disrepair. But, like sleeping beauty, Forest Side has been reawakened. Enchanting gardens are emerging from the wilderness while their fabulous rooms are fit for any prince or princess. In the kitchen talented head chef Kevin Tickle, conjures up menus inspired by the walled garden and the countryside beyond.
Kevin is Cumbrian to the bone. Born on the West Coast his childhood was spent exploring local forests and windswept beaches, learning and understanding all they had to offer. For Kevin, foraging is not just a trend it’s a way of being, something he’s done all his life. Using local suppliers and supporting the rural economy is not a marketing gimmick but an obvious choice. It is this unwavering drive to extract flavour from the Cumbrian Landscape that makes Kevin’s food so special, and which results in menus that deliver truly unique taste combinations and a fantastic dining experience. Kevin’s food is clean, modern and precise. To cook in this way requires the very freshest of ingredients. That’s why, for the last year or so they’ve been re-building the kitchen garden at Forest Side in order to provide the very best quality for as much of the year as possible.
Forest Side officially opened its doors this month. For more information and to book a reservation please go to www.theforestside.com
