The story
Allium at Askham Hall, at Askham Hall, Askham, Cumbria, CA10 2PF, is a modern British restaurant in Penrith that earned a Michelin star in 2026. The kitchen works inside a 14th-century pele tower on a family-owned estate, cooking English food from ingredients grown and reared on the property.
Head chef Richard Swale leads the kitchen, and the six-course menu changes daily. A hand-drawn sketch on the menu shows where most ingredients come from, including the estate's market gardens, farms and upland game areas. The garden salad with sheep's curd, truffle and duck-gizzard vinaigrette is built from leaves set down one at a time. Mull langoustines come with red curry and cauliflower, and red deer is served with summer savory, beetroot and elderberries.
The family has owned Askham Hall since 1724, and the dining room is a light garden room added to the original castle walls. Floors are worn flagstone, and the house has stacks of books and flowers picked from the garden. Families and dogs are welcome, which suits a house that still feels lived in.
Nico Chieze, house manager, maître d' and sommelier, oversees a leather-bound wine list arranged A to Z and drawn from private collections. Some bottles are rare and costly, but many are priced for everyday drinking. Dessert is a geranium set cream with rhubarb, a simple British pudding that shows a light hand with humble ingredients.
Recognition
Details
History
High quality cooking
Dining at chef Richard Swale’s Allium at Askham Hall is like being a house guest in a small château. The 14th-century Pele tower in the picture-perfect hamlet of Askham was, until 2012, the family home of the Lowther family. Sensitively converted for human-scaled hospitality, it remains family-owned and an integral part of the wider working estate. A hand-drawn sketch within the daily changing six-course menu illustrates the provenance of the vast majority of ingredients direct from their own perfectly tended market gardens, farms and upland game areas. Produce this fresh demands cooking of absolute integrity and authenticity, and this Allium is certainly one lily that needs no gilding. The result? Uber-local dishes of joyous celebration, technical excellence and maximum flavour. The Askham garden salad with sheep's curd, truffle and a duck-gizzard vinaigrette is a dish with nowhere to hide, offering simple perfection, leaf by carefully placed leaf. The bold approach to sweet Mull langoustines with red curry and cauliflower pays dividends, while tender red deer with summer savory, beetroot and elderberries captures the essence of this distinctive place on a single plate. A geranium set cream with rhubarb evidences a lightness of touch and preparedness to elevate humble plants to elegant status. Dining in the airy garden room, sensitively appended to the original castle walls, emphasises its proximity to the produce which is the bedrock of brilliance underpinning this 'charming experience'. To match the quality of cooking, an awe-inspiring leather-bound wine list navigates an A-Z of the world’s great wines from the private cellars of passionate collectors. Despite some unique rarities costing an average UK annual salary, there are many well-chosen options at prices accessible to ordinary mortals. All is lovingly stewarded by charming house manager/maître d'/sommelier Nico Chieze, who approaches customers of differing wine knowledge with equal grace and curates flights that cut through any complexity or concern. Some restaurants may appear arbitrary in their location, but Allium and its close-knit family at Askham Hall has deep roots into the local land, history and community.
4 Rosette Award for Culinary Excellence
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