The Restaurant Guide for Wine Lovers
Tarantella
Tarantella is a genuine Italian kitchen in Cockermouth with a compact wine list that punches well above its length. Its programme is coherently Italian, sensibly priced and generous enough by the glass on the everyday tier, with real benchmark bottles at the top, though it offers nothing sweet for the puddings. It will suit anyone who wants to eat Italian and drink Italian around it, from a house glass to a serious Tuscan red.
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The Cottage in the Wood
Braithwaite, Cumbria
Tasting menu (Michelin-starred)
The Cottage in the Wood is a Michelin-starred Lake District restaurant with two rotating hyper-seasonal tasting menus. Its wine programme is exceptional — grower-focused and sustainable, complete by the glass down to Port, Sherry and skin-contact whites, and backed by a per-course matching flight — and it meets the kitchen's ambition course for course. It will reward any wine lover willing to travel for it, and especially one who takes the flight and follows where it leads.
Read the assessmentOld Stamp House
Ambleside, Cumbria
Modern British (Cumbrian tasting menu)
Old Stamp House is a small Ambleside dining room serving a set Cumbrian tasting menu, behind which sits a wine list far more ambitious than the room's size suggests. The wine programme earns its standing on range, on a genuinely deep Sherry, Port and dessert offering, and on a per-course pairing that shows kitchen and cellar working to each other. It will most reward the curious drinker who comes for the food and lets a thoughtful, well-explained list — by the glass, the carafe or the pairing card — lead the way.
Read the assessmentAskham Hall
Askham, Cumbria
Tasting menu (Michelin-starred, kitchen-garden led)
Askham Hall is a Michelin-starred, kitchen-garden restaurant on a Cumbrian estate where a single seasonal tasting menu meets an award-winning classic cellar. The wine programme achieves genuine mutual elevation — a deep, old-world list matched course by course, with a Coravin by-the-glass offer that puts serious and mature bottles within reach one glass at a time. It will most reward the curious wine lover who wants to explore a great cellar at the pace of a tasting menu and trust a sommelier to lead the way.
Read the assessmentFour and Twenty
Penrith, Cumbria
Modern Cumbrian
Four and Twenty is a produce-led modern Cumbrian restaurant in Penrith that prints a suggested wine, by the glass, against every dish it serves. The wine programme earns its standing on that integration and on a genuinely complete by-the-glass offer — three pour sizes, carafes and a Coravin selection across sparkling, white, orange, red and a full sweet-and-fortified shelf — let down only where the printed pairings point the two hardest fish plates at oak the list itself could avoid. It will most reward the diner who comes to eat seasonal Cumbrian cooking and wants to drink well by the glass, taking the menu's suggestions as a strong start and the list's unoaked, high-acid whites as the better answer to the fish.
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