British Travel Journal | Autumn/Winter 2022

meet the chef
STAR MAN
This year, Simon Rogan’s L’Enclume celebrated its 20th anniversary
and became one of only eight restaurants in the UK and 135
restaurants worldwide to receive three Michelin stars. Here, the
world-renowned pioneer of field-to-fork dining tells Chantal Haines
about the toil, the soil and the ambition it took to get there
Text by Chantal Haines
In February 2022, Simon Rogan’s flagship restaurant
L’Enclume was awarded its third Michelin star – an
incredible feat for any restaurant, but for this Lake
District enclave, which has blazed its own trail in
field-to-fork dining, sustainable growing and hyperlocal
produce, it is all the more extraordinary.
Set in the picturesque Lake District village of Cartmel,
L’Enclume is the first restaurant in the north of England
to lay claim to three stars, and the prestigious award has
come at a pivotal time for Rogan. “It’s L’Enclume’s 20th
anniversary this year. It’s every chef’s ambition to get
three stars so to succeed on the 20th anniversary is pretty
special. We're all over the moon about it,” he says.
“I would have hoped it could have been a bit quicker,”
Rogan quips. “But no, in all honesty, I don't really care
when we got it – we have achieved what I set out to do 20
years ago and that’s a fantastic feeling.”
As a young chef he undertook an apprenticeship
for around four and half years at Rhinefield House in
the New Forest getting a first-rate classical grounding
in cookery, and spent eight years on and off working
with Jean-Christophe Novelli – a chef he still notes as his
biggest inspiration. Rogan also undertook stints working
at The Maltster’s Arms in Devon (then owned by Keith
Floyd) and stage placements under other era-defining
chefs, including Marco Pierre White and John Burton-
Race, before going out on his own and opening his debut
restaurant, L’Enclume.
A Lake District love affair
L’Enclume, and Rogan’s multiple offshoot outposts, are
riding high now, but when he first set up in Cartmel two
decades ago, organic produce and kitchen gardens were
all but scoffed at, and fine dining was centered resolutely
in London or the south, at least.
“In the early years, it was a bit of a struggle. We didn't
really have many customers during the week, maybe
getting to the teens around the weekends. And it was even
more of a risk with the product we wanted to provide – I
had developed an interest very early on in my cookery
journey with foraging. While working at Rhinefield House
we would always go out foraging to pick mushrooms
BritishTravelJournal.com 43