Still, Cumbria was a different place when L’Enclume opened in 2002. Yes, there were fine-dining restaurants, primarily in grand country hotels. But while they were excellent, they were, according to Cumbrian Ryan Blackburn, head chef at Old Stamp House, ‘with the greatest respect, pretentious’. As for Cartmel, while it had achieved fame as the disputed home of the sticky toffee pudding, in the words of local parish councilor Barry Dean, it was ‘a seasonal destination with simple pub fare’. Back then, there were four or five traditional pubs. ‘It was your basic gammon, egg and chips,’ says local resident Rachel Holcroft.
‘The product we proposed might have been a little alien,’ Rogan admits. ‘Whenever you open a restaurant, you’re worried about whether it’s going to work. I was confident in my vision to make it a destination. Maybe there was more of a risk because of our location, but I was so desperate to have my own restaurant that I was confident I could make it work.’
After over a decade working for some of the biggest names of the 1990s, including Marco Pierre White and Jean-Christophe Novelli, by 2002 Rogan had decided to go solo. With his wife, Penny Tapsell, he focused on the New Forest, near where they both grew up and conveniently close to London. Rogan’s main goal was to shun external investment, believing it stifled creativity. ‘We couldn’t find anything, we had no money. To have something like we’ve got here would have cost millions in the south.’
Via a tip-off from a recruitment consultant he knew, Rogan found a 13th-century former forge in Cartmel, a place he’d never even visited. The small, well-to-do village has a grandiose 12th-century priory, diminutive stone cottages and a picturesque bridge over the River Eea. It resembles the kind of fantasy land in which Americans think Britons live. With a racecourse and proximity to the Lakes, it was popular primarily with coach tours and walkers. There were some second homes, which Holcroft says were usually unoccupied. ‘Nothing really happened, apart from the races, twice a year,’ she recalls.
.