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Scottish Chef Mark McCabe Brings Scandi-Asian Flair to Henrock in the Lake District
- Cate Devine
- Oct 3
- 4 min read
Fascinating as it is to watch Scottish chef Mark McCabe creating his intricate dishes on television, and to imagine them as you read through his various menus as head chef at Henrock by Simon Rogan in the Lake District, it’s quite a different kettle of fish to taste them. I recently had this pleasure and am still reeling at the memory of what I savoured.
A Scottish Chef’s Journey to Henrock
Chef Mark - who was born in Dundee, grew up in Tannadice and studied English and Music at Aberdeen University - has produced a ten-course menu (including amuse-bouches and petits fours) at his restaurant within the luxury Linthwaite House Hotel with stunning views over Lake
Windermere.
Signature Dishes Inspired by Scottish Icons
Three of the dishes are inspired by influential Scottish figures, as seen on the BBC’s Great British Menu competition, which got him through to the show’s 20th anniversary banquet. His showcase Study in Scarlet, presented here with a flourish in a miniature writing desk, is an ode to Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel. Crispy potato layers replicated the pages of the book, covered in a leather-effect beetroot gel and filled with salt-baked beetroot with a side of smoked blackberry sauce. With its gold-leaf silhouette of Sherlock, it was an exuberant example of how ordinary vegetables can be elevated to something deeply delicious and gorgeous to look at.
But this gifted musician-chef created symphonic unity throughout the meal with his masterful orchestration of the other dishes. Thick slices of Lion’s Mane on a set mushroom custard topped with kombu relish and a smoked dashi were unctuous and slightly bitter, a crispy courgette flower adding texture. I loved this dish for its complexity and the sophistication of its humble ingredients. Another assured dish of cured Cornish monkfish with a sauce of lovage and turnip katsuobushi delivered a smoky kick. And an amazing three-part creation of Caythorne Hall Farm lop-eared pork slices with black garlic sauce, grilled greens with umeboshi - salted Japanese plums - on one plate, a gorgeously aromatic Cotechino pork sausage with white garlic cream on another, and a cool green garden salad with a disc of white beetroot gel to complete the trio was an absolute joy to experience. The lip-smacking spent bread broth with autumn vegetables that accompanied a wholemeal milk loaf and house-made marmite and aged beef tart was from a Polish recipe brought by the sous-chef.
Scandi-Asian Fusion Meets Lake District Produce
Locally grown and foraged plants, and locally sourced ingredients prepared using ancient preservation techniques like fermentation, are clearly Chef Mark’s forte. His is a sort of Scandi-Asian fusion cuisine that I found fascinating.
“I like cooking what’s around me,” he told me. In fact, he co-owned the Michelin Green Star The Ethicurean in Bristol, which focused on sustainability, for several years before closing it in 2023, which is when he was headhunted by Paul Burgalieres, executive chef of Simon Rogan’s three Michelin star l’Enclume in Cumbria, to head up Henrock as his style chimed with chef Rogan’s. Although he came to cooking relatively late at age 23, 38-year-old chef Mark’s Australian mother owned Raffles bistro in Dundee, and he told me food was important when he was growing up. “Mum was making hummus before it became a thing here, and sweet cicely and chanterelles were the first things she taught me to forage.” He would also watch Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage, appreciating his farm-to--
fork, cooking-from-scratch ethos.
“Asian cuisine is much more rooted in preservation techniques but we make our own miso using British peas, koji using British barley rather than Japanese rice, and miso using the tomato pulp left over from our tomato water.”
Most of the vegetables are supplied by Our Farm at Cartmel, close to l’Enclume, though chef Mark has begun growing ingredients to his own specification in a small kitchen garden at the hotel. “It’s an experimental space we took on last year,” he explained. “We’re growing four different types of radish with a range of spice levels, different kales, peas and beans and a
lot of other different small-scale plants.
“One of my chefs has got into making koji and miso. He’ll come in with a spoonful of something radical - leek tops, onion tops, fermented, dried, barbecued - making delicious flavours from vegetables we’ve grown up with all our lives. It’s just amazing and very exciting.”
Having a brigade of eight plus two apprentices means he has more time for R&D. He’s currently developing a sweetcorn dish where the plant is stripped down to its parts to “ramp up the sweetcorn-ness and maximise one ingredient before it’s gone for the season”.
When I asked which Scottish restaurants he admired, I wasn’t surprised when he answered with Glasgow’s Fallachan Kitchen. “I love meals that are a bit different - a real snapshot of then and there in that chef. I love Chef Craig Grozier’s cooking. Precision and technique are there, but it’s also really imaginative and very special.”
Would he like a Michelin Star for Henrock? “Of course I’d like one from a personal point of view and for Simon and for Henrock. But I also want a restaurant that’s thriving and busy.”
And would he like to return to Scotland at some point in the future? “I’d really like to open my own place in Scotland. I’m here to do a good job for Simon, but I feel the pull back to the land that has more connection to me.”
Meantime, it’s back to the Pass and his GBM signature Curiously Herbal - a cool, not too sweet herbal meringue, sorrel sorbet and frozen yogurt inspired by the Scots botanical illustrator Elizabeth Blackwell, followed by An Ode to Mould, inspired by Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin. This was a creamy salty-sweet koji-infused rice pudding with miso caramel served in a mock petri dish, and an amakaze ice-cream with quince and sake compote.
The sheer effort and imagination required to create such a challenging complexity of flavours was apparent in every dish, and certainly ended the meal on a high note.
Henrock by Simon Rogan, Linthwaite House Hotel, Crook Ln, Bowness-on-Windermere, Windermere LA23 3JA
Open from Wednesday to Sunday for dinner and lunch on Sunday.
Cate Devine is an award-winning food journalist.
