Restaurant in Newton in Cartmel, United Kingdom
Rural Cumbria's tasting menu you'll plan around.
A Michelin-starred pub-with-rooms in rural Cumbria, Heft is Kevin Tickle's hyper-local 10-course tasting menu at £120 per head, backed by a Star Wine List award and an Opinionated About Dining top-400 ranking. Book well in advance for dinner; the front bar, with local cask beer and freshly made pies, is open for walk-ins.
Getting a reservation at Heft is genuinely difficult. This is a Michelin-starred, 17th-century village inn in rural Cumbria with limited covers, a set dinner at £120 per person and a dining room that runs on a fixed-time, all-tables-served-simultaneously format. That last detail matters: if you do secure a booking, arrive promptly. Late arrivals disrupt a service model built around precision. For explorers willing to plan ahead and make the journey to High Newton, Heft delivers some of the most focused, place-specific cooking in the north of England. For those wanting a more spontaneous evening, the front bar is a genuinely good fallback, with local cask beer, freshly made pies, and pizza on Wednesday nights.
Kevin Tickle cut his teeth as Simon Rogan's head forager at L'Enclume in Cartmel, then went on to lead the kitchen at Forest Side in Grasmere. Heft sits geographically between those two operations, and stylistically it draws on both: the hyper-local, foraged ingredient obsession of L'Enclume and the grounded Lakeland sensibility of Forest Side, filtered through Tickle's own creative voice. He runs the venue with his wife Nicola, who handles front-of-house. The name itself is doing two jobs simultaneously. It signals seriousness, the weight of intent behind an 11-course tasting menu where dinner is the only option in the dining room. But it also reaches back into Cumbrian dialect, where 'heft' describes sheep returning instinctively to the same fells. That dual meaning reflects the operation precisely: high ambition anchored to a specific place.
The dining room sits at the rear of a whitewashed 17th-century building. Generously spaced Scandinavian-style furniture, ancient walls, and an open kitchen partially visible to diners create a calm, unhurried atmosphere that feels miles away from the theatrical dining rooms of London. The noise level stays low throughout service, making Heft a strong choice for a conversation-led evening. Some courses arrive delivered by chefs directly through a gap in the kitchen wall; others are carried by smartly turned-out young locals. The service style has been described by diners as friendly and professional, managing the logistical challenge of simultaneous service across all tables without delays. This is not a room that performs its ambition loudly. The confidence is communicated through the food.
Heft has earned a Star Wine List award (2026), which positions it seriously within its price tier. Reviewers have noted 'off-piste wine choices', a phrase worth taking literally: this is not a list built around safe, recognisable labels. For a Lakeland inn at £120 per head for dinner, a wine list that surprises is a meaningful differentiator. The front bar operates as a separate entity with good local cask beer and a selection of wine by the glass, which means the drinks program serves two very different audiences at the same venue. If you are coming for the tasting menu, the wine pairing or a considered bottle from the list is clearly part of the intended experience. If you are stopping in for a pie and a pint, the bar holds its own without requiring any commitment to the dining room. For context on the drinks ambition, the Star Wine List recognition puts Heft in company with restaurants that take their cellar as seriously as their kitchen. Compared to the broader region, where pub wine lists remain functional at leading, this is a genuine point of difference. See our full Newton in Cartmel bars guide for the wider local picture.
The tasting menu is built around Cumbrian producers Tickle knows personally. Ingredients from the Rusland Valley, Herdwick hogget from Town Head Farm in Grasmere, and Matt Gott's halloumi glazed in thyme honey appear regularly. The cooking draws on surprising combinations and global techniques applied to hyper-local produce: chawanmushi-style egg custard with oxtail and thyme, mussels glazed in XO and mead, scorched monkfish. The four-course set lunch at £49 per person offers meaningful access to the kitchen at a lower commitment level and has received strong praise independently of the dinner. Sunday roasts are available and have been described by diners as taking the traditional format to a different register entirely.
Reservations: Hard to get. Book well in advance for dinner; the set format and limited covers mean last-minute availability is rare. Dinner: 10-course set menu at £120 per person, served Wednesday through Sunday from 12 PM. Lunch: Set lunch at £49 per person, four courses. Bar: Open for walk-ins; pies, pizza (Wednesday), local cask beer, wine by the glass. Timing: Arrive on time for dinner — the all-tables-simultaneous service structure is unforgiving of late arrivals. Getting There: High Newton, Grange-over-Sands, LA11 6JH. This is rural Cumbria; driving is the practical option for most visitors. Check our full Newton in Cartmel restaurants guide and hotels guide if you are planning an overnight stay.
| Venue | Cuisine | Price | Booking Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| heft | Modern British | ££££ | Hard |
| Restaurant Gordon Ramsay | Contemporary European, French | ££££ | Unknown |
| CORE by Clare Smyth | Modern British | ££££ | Unknown |
| The Ledbury | Modern European, Modern Cuisine | ££££ | Unknown |
| Sketch, The Lecture Room and Library | Modern French | ££££ | Unknown |
| Dinner by Heston Blumenthal | Modern British, Traditional British | ££££ | Unknown |
Key differences to consider before you reserve.
Small groups should book early and confirm cover limits directly with the venue. The dining room uses generously spaced Scandinavian-style furniture, which suits pairs and small parties well, but the limited covers mean large groups may struggle to secure a single sitting. The set format — a 10-course dinner served simultaneously to all tables — also makes flexible group timing impossible, so everyone needs to arrive together and on time.
At £120 per head for 10 courses, the dinner tasting menu is well-priced relative to Michelin-starred peers with comparable ambition. Kevin Tickle's background as Simon Rogan's head forager at L'Enclume shapes the menu: hyper-local Cumbrian producers, foraged ingredients, and technically precise cooking that reviewers have described as delivering 'an intensity of flavour' beyond what seasonal-local positioning usually promises. If a set tasting format suits you, it earns its price. The £49 set lunch is a sharper deal for those cautious about commitment.
The counter arrangement near the open kitchen and the relaxed front bar make Heft workable for solo diners, though the format — a fixed multi-course dinner with simultaneous service — is more structured than a casual solo visit. For the full tasting menu experience, going solo is fine; the service style is described as friendly and unhurried rather than formal. The dog-friendly front bar, with pies and local cask beer, is the lower-commitment option for a solo drop-in.
Heft is a 17th-century village inn at its core — the Scandinavian-style dining room is considered and calm, but not stiffly formal. Think neat, comfortable clothes rather than black tie. The front bar and the Michelin-starred rear restaurant share the same building, so the dress expectation sits somewhere between a quality country pub and a serious tasting-menu restaurant: put-together but not ceremonial.
Yes, for the right diner. At £120 for 10 courses and a Star Wine List (2026) wine program with off-piste choices, Heft sits well below London Michelin-star pricing for a comparable level of ambition. The Opinionated About Dining ranking (#345 in Europe, 2025) suggests it punches above what the address and price point imply. If you're driving to Cumbria for food, the £49 set lunch is one of the more defensible spends at this level in the UK.
Yes — a strong choice. The format is occasion-ready: a set tasting menu, simultaneous service, an open kitchen, and a wine list that earned a Star Wine List award in 2026. The atmosphere is described as low-key rather than stuffy, which suits celebrations that don't want a formal-hotel feel. Book well in advance; last-minute availability at this cover count is rare, especially for dinner.
L'Enclume in Cartmel is the most direct comparison — Kevin Tickle trained there under Simon Rogan and Heft sits geographically between L'Enclume and Forest Side in Grasmere, his other former employer. L'Enclume holds two Michelin stars and is significantly more expensive; Heft offers a similar northern-English forager-led ethos at a more accessible price point. Forest Side in Grasmere is the third point in this Cumbrian triangle and worth considering if you want a country-house format rather than a village inn.
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