The Cavendish Arms

During our recent visit to the beautiful Lake District village of Cartmel with fabulous friends Tom and Heather, we were very lucky to stay in a beautiful 450-year-old inn known as The Cavendish Arms. Cartmel is amazing and we think everyone should go there.

The Cavendish Arms was right up our street - the charm of the place is undeniable; we loved the antique furniture in the rooms, the slightly rickety nature of the place and the pub downstairs is brilliant. It was exactly the cosy type of place you can't wait to get back to after a long walk in the Lakes and let's not forget the fact that it is a mere stone's throw away from L'Enclume!

Bailey kept a close eye on the toast throughout breakfast

We booked The Cavendish Arms after receiving a Twitter recommendation, but didn't actually know too much about it until a couple of days beforehand when I heard that Heather had been looking on the website and was really excited about the prospect of staying there. We then had a look ourselves to discover that not only did The Cavendish Arms' food sound amazing (also locally sourced where possible) they had also been named one of the "top breakfast destinations in the Lake District"! As breakfast is one of my favourite meals of the day, I was very happy to hear this news.

The breakfast was indeed brilliant, on both mornings of our Cavendish Arms stay I very much enjoyed eating loads of Fruit and Fibre followed by a delightful plate of Smoked Salmon and Scrambled Eggs with a nice selection of different types of toast. The other dudes had the Full English every morning and thought this was fantastic - it certainly looked very nice and fancy. This place definitely deserved its brekkie awards and on the last day we all said we were very sad that we wouldn't be eating breakfast there every day which led to a discussion about how good it would be to move in and live like Alan Partridge.

We decided to get our dinner at The Cavendish Arms on the last evening of our stay as we were sure the food was going to be as good as breakfast had been. Having spent the day doing an epic 9 mile walk, we were well up for a relaxing evening in a friendly pub, which is exactly what we got.

I was on the cuppas for most of the night, which were great as they came with the most amazing buttery, sticky cubes of flapjack. However everyone else was boozing - Bailey and Tom were super impressed with the beers from local Unsworth's Yard Brewery and the Sauvingnon Blanc that me and Heather had been on throughout our stay was fantastic.

Having spent the previous two days eating, Bailey and I decided not to go for starters, but Tom and Heather did. I tried one of Heather's mussels which was gorgeous with a lovely chilli kick. Tom was very impressed with his pâté too.

After spending ages choosing my main and not being sure about what I'd ordered, I was so pleased to recieve the most wonderful looking Trout with Garlic Stuffing. This was delicious, the veg was crunchy and the potatoes nicely done, the fish soft and moist. My favourite part however was the stuffing which had all little cubes of bread in, some of which were crispy, some of which were soft and all of which were amazingly garlicky. Mmmm.

Bailey chose the Steak and Ale Pie which he said "really hit the spot". You could really taste the ale in the rich sauce and the steak melted in the mouth. I was concerned that Bailey's chips looked a bit pasty, however they were fat, crisp, fluffy in the middle and delicious - just what you would want out of a good pub chip.

The other mains around the table went down well and we were all too full for a pudding.

The rest of the evening was spent playing cards, looking at people's dogs and having a jolly good time. I wish there was a pub in Manchester where we could so comfortably partake in such activities. All of The Cavendish Arms staff were brilliant and were all super friendly and happy to chat to us, they clearly loved their job. One guy made us laugh telling us about his plan to convince the rest of the staff that he was a spy - it made me wish I worked there myself. We came back from Cartmel feeling very well rested and this was definitely partly down to our fabulous lodgings. We would 100% recommend The Cavendish Arms if you're in Cartmel and if you're on the lookout for a hotel to move into à la Partridge, we think you should consider this one!