This new dining heaven from Michelin star chef Kevin Tickle has burst onto the national restaurant scene.
When Kevin and Nicola Tickle announced they’d taken on a former 17th century coaching inn in a Lakeland village, the food world paid attention. They also knew to expect big things. Kevin, who earned his stripes at Simon Rogan’s L’Enclume, was the former head chef at Grasmere’s Forest Side and the person responsible for its swift gain of a Michelin star. Nicola is a front of house supremo who has worked at some of the Lake District’s best establishments. They are a formidable pair.
While many might have shied away from taking on the old inn in High Newton, they ripped out the interior restoring its gorgeous stone floors and fireplace and built every chef’s dream, a custom-built kitchen for Kevin. After a painstaking 12 months of renovation – which also happened to be in the middle of you-know-what, the couple launched Heft, a dining destination for gourmet gadabouts as well as a much longed-for place for locals to eat and drink.
Those locals are a lucky group because this is no ordinary village boozer. With some of the best in the business at his side – including some of his former Forest Side chefs, Kevin is conjuring up exciting, innovative dishes that provide a true plot to plate experience. Food provenance has never been about the latest foodie trends for Kevin. The chef patron, who since his childhood on the Furness Peninsula has loved to forage, fish and hunt, has brought that passion into his menus with exceptional seasonal small plates and a divine tasting menu. The dishes place locally reared and produced food and drink at their heart - think bread from Kendal’s Lovingly Artisan and lamb and beef from nearby Whitbarrow farmer, Adam Crowe. Kevin is also running a series of dining events with some of the best chefs in the country, including with Moor Hall’s Mark Birchall in December and Steven Smith, from the Ribble Valley’s Freemasons at Wiswell, next February, and beer pairing dining experiences with
Lakes Brew Co.
And there is more to come with the launch of a new, no ordinary Sunday lunch menu and the addition of five guest rooms, created with local interior design house Inkwood Interiors, which will feature bespoke fabrics from Cumbria’s Cabbage & Curtain Rail to deliver rustically chic rooms.
‘This has been a great opportunity for us,’ says Kevin. ‘We wanted to take what we had learned over the past 20 years to create our own dining destination. I worked in Cartmel for years and Nicola grew up in Rusland, we are rooted here.
It has felt like coming home.’
