Allium at Askham Hall

Allium is an under-the-radar one star restaurant with kitchen garden at the stunning Askham Hall, part of the living and working Askham Estate, just outside Penrith. You can stay overnight in the hall itself, or opt for a room in their smart, cosy pub (which also has excellent food and a very good, if more concise wine list) a short stroll away in the pretty village of, you guessed it, Askham.

Pre-dinner drinks and snacks are offered in one of the hall’s ancient stone drawing rooms, where you can later retire for coffee, petit fours and digestifs, next to a crackling open fireplace the size of a small hatchback. Setting the tone perfectly, this also gives you the opportunity to settle down with the wine list – a necessary pleasure once you see the enormity of it.

A mix of more recent purchases and current owner Charles Lowther’s ancestor’s collection, it is nothing short of astonishing in both depth and breadth, including references for Bordeaux going back to the late 1800s. Charles has a particular passion for Burgundy, evident from this no-stone-unturned approach to collecting. Imposing in length it might be, but it’s far from inaccessible - as well as the fine and rare, the list is also home to many smaller and unknown producers and lesser lauded regions producing equally world-class wines. And there’s also plenty to recognise for those on a very modest budget.

Given the average person’s ability to be overwhelmed by pretty much any wine list (although here you would easily be forgiven) you can leave it to the talented sommelier team to pour you the pairings. And for special celebrations with friends, they have a stately wood-panelled private dining room, the perfect place to plunder the larger formats, which are some of their favourites to open.

As if having this sheer volume of incredible wine at your fingertips wasn’t enough, the physical list itself is a hand-bound thing of beauty. If a wine list could do a mic drop, this would be the one to do it.