Kirkstile Inn — Restaurant in England

THE HIGHLIGHTS: Ample car parking and a roaring fire, along with friendliest staff welcomes you. Food fantastic, Ale cold and varied and wonderful, BIRRA MORRETI ON DRAUGHT Get in! Wine and champers for grape lovers. Well chosen selection of whisky to warm the cockles of the traveller. Plenty of Gin to please the current crop of superficial, fad chasing, turps tasting, clear liquid drinkers. There is also one hell of an impressively. imposing mountain giving a backsrop to the beer garden. My only comment for improvement would be that maybe little background music would just top off the atmosphere. Top, top effort, with nobody leaving here disappointed in a hurry, I think...!

MY EXPERIENCE: My wife and I had a very pleasant evening in the Kirkstile Inn tonight after a day trekking round Ennerdale water. We arrived 2 hours before our booking and were still seated and served immediately, this was hugely welcome because we were famished and there was quite the walk back to our bothy accommodation on the top of a nearby fell...

The staff were polite and attentive without being intrusive, just as you would want. The food was the best "Pub Food" I've eaten in a long time.

Our menu included a cauliflower and local cheese soup with a freshly warm, buttered, cheese swirl roll and tempura battered Monkfish tails on a salsa bed for starters. My soup was divine, the best soup roll combo I've ever eaten. I was almost ready to leave mains and desert to eat another two bowls full, the Monkfish was delightful, too. Round 1 done, I claimed 1-0 for the soup (wife disagreed, but it's my review... 😁). I don't have a picture because it was devoured promptly.

The main courses were chicken, leek and local chorizo suet pudding on a bed of mash with glazed carrots and a sauce; and also Lamb Henry on perfect mash potato with an unusually, for pubs, varied delicious vegetable accompaniment. Both were given a fitting a proper send-off. I love a suet pudding, especially when it's proper suet and not rubber slime from a chippy. This was a proper suet pudding, and it didn't last long. I have it on good authority that the Lamb was also quite delicious (it was, I had a nibble). I also like Lamb, and whilst both were great, I'm awarding round 2 to the Lamb henry. Score 1-1.

The deserts disappeared as quickly as they were served. Mine was an apple and rhubarb crumble with a sexy custard on top 👍🏻🤗 The wife had a white chocolate and orange cheesecake. The cheesecake was lush and not at all as sickly sweet as I imagined it to be. Even so, the rhubarb crumble is the king of puds, a northern staple, and not an American imposter, so OBVIOUSLY it takes the win in this round hands down. Did I mention how sexy it tasted. Therefore I claim the best meal win 2-1. 😉

The locally brewed ale for the premises was top drawer, but I can't recall its name. Birra Moretti on draught tap is also a surefire sign of a landlord that knows good drinking substances 🙌🏻. They were followed by the peatiest of wee scotch drams, Laphroaig, and a loosening of the trouser button followed by a contented grin.

I will admit to a sense of disappointment when I stared down at my empty crumble and custard bowl, but knowing that I couldn't eat another mouthful it soon passed, honest.

I would have liked a little background music playing, with maybe a little jig on St. Patrick's day, or my 15th Wedding Anniversary, as I call it... 😂

I will visit again, when I'm in the area. But make sure next time you...

With a local 5 star reputation the Kirkstile has held its own for years and is a classic rural pub - no questions asked, you’d think… ||Expecting big things (Yorkshire puddings most importantly) we booked a table as our usual roast dinner haunt was fully booked. School boy error one could say! ||Now as mentioned, the kirkstile has a solid reputation and when surveying the menu I wasn’t surprised to see a turkey dinner was £17. As I said, expecting big things, however the only big thing I got was a bill and a burnt pig in blanket. ||The turkey was 10/10, no winging it with that. But as described the pig appeared to be wrapped in a used fire blanket as opposed to a piece of bacon. Plenty of cranberry sauce to soften the crisp but this tasted more like Jam and was too sickly sweet. ||Onto the potatoes, everybody loves a roastie - the only thing roasted here is the quality of the food though. On appearance they looked top dollar, but they tasted like they’d seen the inside of a deep fat fryer and had been dipped in your cars engine #oily. Northerners love a bit of gravy, making one liners and references to it on a daily basis. But unfortunately the kirkstiles gravy was watery, lacking in quantity and probably needed a bit of bisto.||Stuffing was alright tho, everybody likes a bit of sausage meat on a Sunday don’t they. ||All in all, not a lot of bang for too much buck ! ||From the words of my 11 year old and no disrespect to the school cook…. “My school dinners better...

With a local 5 star reputation the Kirkstile has held its own for years and is a classic rural pub - no questions asked, you’d think… ||Expecting big things (Yorkshire puddings most importantly) we booked a table as our usual roast dinner haunt was fully booked. School boy error one could say! ||Now as mentioned, the kirkstile has a solid reputation and when surveying the menu I wasn’t surprised to see a turkey dinner was £17. As I said, expecting big things, however the only big thing I got was a bill and a burnt pig in blanket. ||The turkey was 10/10, no winging it with that. But as described the pig appeared to be wrapped in a used fire blanket as opposed to a piece of bacon. Plenty of cranberry sauce to soften the crisp but this tasted more like Jam and was too sickly sweet. ||Onto the potatoes, everybody loves a roastie - the only thing roasted here is the quality of the food though. On appearance they looked top dollar, but they tasted like they’d seen the inside of a deep fat fryer and had been dipped in your cars engine #oily. Northerners love a bit of gravy, making one liners and references to it on a daily basis. But unfortunately the kirkstiles gravy was watery, lacking in quantity and probably needed a bit of bisto.||Stuffing was alright tho, everybody likes a bit of sausage meat on a Sunday don’t they. ||All in all, not a lot of bang for too much buck ! ||From the words of my 11 year old and no disrespect to the school cook…. “My school dinners better...