The Green Star is the distinction most visitor guides ignore, which is a pity, because in a farming county it is arguably the more interesting one. It is not awarded for cooking. It is awarded for how a restaurant grows, sources, handles and wastes what it serves — and two Cumbrian kitchens hold one.
Quick Facts
This is a landscape made by farming. The fell walls, the hefted flocks, the shape of the valleys themselves — all of it is agricultural before it is scenic, and the tension between farming it and preserving it is the live argument of the modern Lake District. A restaurant distinction that measures the relationship between a kitchen and the land around it is not a marketing badge here. It is a question the county is already arguing about.
Three Michelin Stars and a Green Star. Much of what arrives on the plate is grown on the restaurant's own farm, less than a mile away — which is the shortest supply chain it is possible to have without growing it in the dining room. How to spend the day around a table here.
One Michelin Star, one Michelin Key for the hotel, and a Green Star newly awarded in the 2026 guide — one of a small number given nationally that year. The Victorian walled kitchen garden grows well over a hundred varieties without chemicals and supplies the restaurant directly; the rest is sourced within about ten miles or foraged locally. The absence of chemicals is also why the woodland behind still holds red squirrels and roe deer. How to spend the day around a table here.
The walled garden at Forest Side is worth walking before dinner rather than after — you will recognise things. More broadly, this is the thread that runs through a good deal of what we do anyway: our tours spend a lot of their time on how this landscape is farmed, why the walls run where they do, and what hefting means. The Beatrix Potter Hidden Country tour is largely a story about land ownership and Herdwick sheep with a children's author attached.
A separate distinction from the Michelin Star, awarded to restaurants at the forefront of sustainable practice — how produce is grown, sourced, handled and wasted, rather than the cooking alone. A restaurant can hold a Green Star with or without Stars.
Two: L'Enclume in Cartmel, which also holds three Michelin Stars, and Forest Side in Grasmere, newly awarded a Green Star for 2026 alongside its existing Star.
Forest Side's walled kitchen garden can be walked by guests staying at the hotel, and is worth doing before dinner rather than after. Farm access varies and is best arranged directly with the restaurant.
We are an independent local tour operator. We have no affiliation with, and no commercial arrangement of any kind with, any restaurant or hotel named in this collection. There are no paid placements and no affiliate links here.