Lovage

Between Two Stone Buildings in the Peak District

Arrive on Bath Street in Bakewell and the geography tells you something before you reach the door. Lovage is shoehorned — quite literally — between two taller stone buildings, the kind of compressed Victorian commercial row that defines the market towns of the Peak District. The panelled interior creates an unexpectedly sophisticated room: calm, considered, and proportioned for a restaurant that takes its cooking seriously. This is not the exposed-beam rusticity that Derbyshire visitors might expect. It is closer in mood to a city neighbourhood brasserie that has migrated to the countryside without diluting its ambitions.

That positioning matters because it sets the terms for what follows. The gastropub revolution of the past two decades changed the way Britain relates to serious cooking outside major cities. What began with chefs like Tom Kerridge at Hand and Flowers in Marlow , a two-star kitchen running inside a pub building , gradually established the principle that culinary precision need not be tethered to metropolitan postcodes. Lovage represents a further iteration of that shift: a restaurant in a Derbyshire market town of fewer than 4,000 residents, holding a Michelin Plate in both 2024 and 2025, and cooking a menu that would hold its own in a substantially larger city.

A Kitchen Shaped by Movement

The cooking at Lovage is not straightforwardly British, and that is the point. Head Chef Kleo was born in Albania, spent formative time in Italy, and has made the UK his home. The result is a menu that treats Mediterranean technique and ingredient logic as a natural inheritance rather than a borrowed affectation. A welcome lack of fuss runs through the dishes: flavour is the priority, and there is no visible strain in the reaching for it.

That Mediterranean influence places Lovage in an interesting tradition. Some of the most compelling Modern British cooking of the past decade has been produced by chefs who absorbed multiple European frameworks before arriving at a personal idiom , consider how kitchens like L'Enclume in Cartmel or Moor Hall in Aughton synthesise classical rigour with regional identity. Lovage operates at a different price point and scale, but the underlying instinct is comparable: cook from a genuine culinary inheritance rather than from a trend board.

The menu demonstrates range. Sea trout cured in blood-orange and fennel arrives in a bright pink peppercorn and chilli dressing. Roasted seasonal beetroot pairs with sheep's yoghurt and dukkah. Monkfish comes in a Goan curry with pak choi and Bombay mix. Duck breast receives complex treatment with prunes, kalettes, parsnip purée, and a sauce of chocolate and blackberry. The seven-course tasting menu includes a vegetarian version, with roast squash, chestnuts, quince, rainbow chard, and black garlic as its central moment. None of these combinations are timid, but none are showy for its own sake either.

The cheese course deserves mention because it reflects a specifically regional intelligence. Hartington Creamery's Stilton appears as the centrepiece of a cheese plate with stout cake and spiced apricot. Hartington is eleven miles from Bakewell and one of only a handful of creameries licensed to produce authentic Stilton. A kitchen in this part of Derbyshire that did not engage with that ingredient would be missing an obvious opportunity. Lovage does not miss it. Desserts extend the ambition: rhubarb pavlova, cherry soufflé with pistachio ice cream and chocolate sauce.

Format, Value, and the Practicalities

Lovage offers three ways in: the à la carte for maximum choice, a fixed-price menu for value, and the full tasting menu for the complete run through the kitchen. The wine list draws from across Europe at sensible prices, which is rarer than it should be at this level of cooking. The price range sits at £££, which positions it significantly below the ££££ tier occupied by the likes of CORE by Clare Smyth or The Ritz Restaurant in London. For the quality on the plate, that gap represents genuine value by any comparative measure.

Service is managed by Lisa, Kleo's partner, whose hospitality reads as instinctive rather than procedural. In the context of small independent restaurants, that distinction matters more than it might in a larger operation with a formal front-of-house programme. The room feels looked-after in the way that only an owner-operator can sustain. Knowledgeable staff add to the sense that guests are being guided, not processed.

The second chef named in Lovage's record, Lee Smith, reached the regional finals of Great British Menu in 2019 , a competition that has historically functioned as a reliable signal of serious culinary intent rather than simply television profile. The East Midlands has produced strong regional cooking for years, with kitchens like Opheem in Birmingham pushing the region's profile nationally. Lovage sits in that broader East Midlands conversation at a different price and format point, but with comparable seriousness.

Placing Lovage in the Broader Map

Michelin Plates are awarded on the basis of cooking quality rather than as stepping stones toward star recognition, but two consecutive Plates in a market town of this size are a meaningful signal. The guide's attention to small-town destinations has sharpened in recent years, with kitchens like hide and fox in Saltwood and Gidleigh Park in Chagford illustrating that geographic remoteness does not constrain recognition. A 4.9 Google rating across 158 reviews is statistically difficult to sustain and suggests a consistent experience rather than occasional brilliance.

Bakewell is a visitor town, and the wider Peak District draws considerable weekend traffic from Sheffield, Manchester, and the East Midlands. Lovage operates in a context where visitors are common but the room does not feel designed around passing footfall. Reservations are advisable. For those building an itinerary around the area, see our full Bakewell restaurants guide, our full Bakewell hotels guide, our full Bakewell bars guide, our full Bakewell wineries guide, and our full Bakewell experiences guide.

For those who have made the journey to comparable destinations , Midsummer House in Cambridge, Restaurant Andrew Fairlie in Auchterarder, or Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Great Milton , the principle is familiar: serious cooking in non-metropolitan settings rewards the extra distance. The Fat Duck in Bray and The Ledbury in London operate at a different tier entirely, but the logic of travelling to find a kitchen that punches above its surroundings is the same. Lovage, at Bath Street, Bakewell DE45 1DS, is that kitchen for the Peak District.