Award-winning food in a mountain retreat

A night in the Lake District at a romantic restaurant with rooms in a mountain forest? It sounded irresistible, especially as the Cottage in the Wood is this year's winner of the 'Taste of Cumbria Award'. My wife and I left our 18-month old at my parents in Keswick, the nearest town to Cottage in the Wood, and headed up Whinlatter Pass (billed as England's only true mountain forest) to find the restaurant.

Cottage in the Wood is only a few miles from the hubbub of tourist central but you really do feel that you get away from it all up there. Whinlatter Forest all around you boasts rare ospreys, adrenalin-junkie mountain biking trails, treetop zip wires as well as this fabulous restaurant retreat.

There are nine rooms, including the Spruce attic suite, which takes up the whole of the top floor. The room we had featured a whirlpool bath and a mountain view well worth splashing out on. Looking down the valley, Skiddaw looms large.

England's fourth highest mountain proved a perfect backdrop for dinner that night. Kath and Liam Berney bought the restaurant (an 17th century coaching inn) in 2002 and have recently upgraded the menu to include more foraged and home-grown food. Cottage in the Wood chefs are known locally for making their own bread, pasta and ice cream.

The food turned out to be as special as the surroundings. We had seared mackerel fillet (with marinated beetroot) and salad nicoise to start (with local Bassenthwaite duck egg). Liam and Kath say that foraging for jack in the hedge or meadowsweet, and providing veg from new chef Rupert Wilday‘s allotment have all had a big effect on the menu this year.

For main course, my wife had West coast turbot poached in red wine with creamed leeks and garlic mash, which she said was the best turbot she had ever eaten. I had baked marrow with globe artichoke stuffing and roast pepper coulis. Marrow is one of the most difficult vegetables to cook - it's very hard to make it taste palatable. But the chef turned this normally bland monster-veg into a rich, piquant main course full of wonderful subtle flavours.

Other tempting delights on the menu included loin of fell-bred lamb, fell-bred beef, Fylde coast quail and Goosnargh duck. Brookside Products (www.tasteofthelakes.com) in nearby Maryport supplies the Cottage in the Wood with most of the fish and shellfish.  Lakes Speciality Foods supply meat from a network of local farmers. This includes the fell lamb and beef and traditional pork breeds such as saddlebacks and old spot. Other signature dishes include Galloway beef: rib morsel braised with Cumberland mustard, slow roasted loin rosette dressed with beetroot and horseradish, glazed autumn roots and creamy mash and salad of west coast crab, crab subric, mango salsa, crab mayonnaise, baby spinach and samphire.

We retired to the cosy low-ceiling lounge, where you can play Scrabble in front of the fire and as we did so the clouds drifted over the peak of Skiddaw.

The next day's breakfast included locally-foraged forest mushrooms with free-range scrambled egg from nearby Scales Farm in Embleton on sourdough toast. After this feast I jogged up the great fell. And jogged. And jogged. One hour and 20 minutes later I reached the top. I could see nothing but cold, clean mist. But coming back down I looked across the valley, to Derwent Water, Keswick, Bassenthwaite Lake and up via Braithwaite following the pass to a beautiful building that stood out towards the top - the Cottage in the Wood.

Cottage in the Wood, Braithwaite, Cumbria (01768 778409; www.thecottageinthewood.co.uk; rooms from £96).

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