For a town of under five thousand people, Keswick feeds an extraordinary number of visitors, and it has adapted accordingly. Main Street and Lake Road between them hold more cafés, pubs and restaurants than most towns three times the size, and the standard is high because the competition is relentless. What Keswick does not have is fine dining in the metropolitan sense — this is a walking town, and the food reflects that. Portions are generous, the pubs take muddy boots and wet dogs in their stride, and the best meal of your trip may well be a bowl of something hot after seven hours on Skiddaw.
This guide is organised by what you actually want at the time: breakfast, lunch on the move, an afternoon coffee, a proper dinner, or a pint.
Keswick takes breakfast seriously because half its visitors are heading for a fell. Lake Road Brunch on Lake Road is the specialist and does what the name promises. Fabrica, tucked into Museum Square, has built a strong following on brunch cooking. Java Coffee Shop on Main Street is the long-established option and the one most likely to have a table when the others are full.
If you are staying in a guesthouse, most Keswick B&Bs still serve a full cooked breakfast as a matter of course, which is worth factoring into the day’s budget.
Treeby & Bolton on Lake Road combines a deli, a shop and a café and is the sort of place people go back to twice in a week. Café Hope, in Hope Park itself, is the family default — it sits between the town and the lake with the golf and the model boats outside, and it is set up for exactly that trade. The Filling Station Cafe on Crosthwaite Road is the locals’ choice and a useful one to know when the centre is heaving.
Two out-of-town cafés justify the walk. The Lingholm Kitchen and Walled Garden at Portinscale, about two kilometres round the northern shore, occupies the estate where Beatrix Potter spent childhood summers, and the walled garden is worth seeing on its own account. The Chalet Tearooms, also at Portinscale, is the traditional alternative — a proper tearoom with a long history and a loyal following. Both make a natural halfway point on a shore walk.
The Kingfisher on Main Street is the one Keswick sends you to. It is a takeaway rather than a restaurant, and the queue on a summer evening tells you everything. Eat them in Hope Park or down by the lake and you have the cheapest good dinner in town.
The Round on Main Street does burgers and does them very well; it is busy, informal and popular with families. Casa Bella on Station Street is the long-running Italian and the reliable choice for a group with mixed tastes. Bar eS on New Street covers tapas and small plates and is one of the more interesting menus in town. Piri Fresco on Main Street handles the grilled-chicken end of the market with a following that is out of proportion to its size.
For something a step up, Elm on Southey Street and the Derwent Walker on Lake Road are the places Keswick people book for an occasion. Fellpack, which grew out of a Keswick street-food operation into a restaurant and rooms on The Heads, has become one of the names most associated with the town’s food scene.
Curry is well covered: Barua Street Food on Lake Road and Bagheera in the Lakes on Station Street both have strong local reputations, alongside the older-established Indian restaurants that the town has supported for decades.
Keswick’s pubs are its social infrastructure, and most of them serve food at lunch and dinner. The traditional core is The Dog & Gun, The Oddfellows Arms and the Bank Tavern, all with a good range of real ale and all within a couple of minutes of the market square. The Dog & Gun’s goulash is one of those dishes that people plan a day around.
For something more modern, The Square Orange on St John’s Street, Café Bar 26 on Lake Road and Sweeney’s offer a different register — continental beer, coffee, pizza and live music. The Oddfellows has music most nights; the Square Orange and Café Bar 26 run Thursday sessions; Sweeney’s does Friday and Saturday.
The George Hotel on St John’s Street is the oldest coaching inn in town and does the traditional pub-with-rooms thing properly. The Pocket Cafe Bar on Lake Road is small, well run and good for a quiet drink.
Keswick Brewing Company runs a taproom in town, and the Wild Sheep Distillery offers a look at spirit-making on a small scale. Both are within walking distance of the centre and both are useful wet-afternoon options.
Late drinking is limited — this is a town that gets up early. The Loft on the square is the only club, and the Queens back bar is where locals end up.
Cumberland sausage is the regional dish and appears on almost every pub menu, traditionally coiled and served with mash. Herdwick lamb, from the sheep that graze the surrounding fells, is the other local speciality, and Borrowdale trout appears when it is available. Sticky toffee pudding is a Cumbrian invention and Keswick takes it seriously. Grasmere gingerbread, from the village seventeen kilometres south, is worth a detour if you are heading that way.
Booking. In July, August and at half term, book dinner. Keswick’s restaurants are small and the town’s population effectively multiplies in season. Sunday lunch in particular needs a reservation.
Dogs. Almost every pub in Keswick welcomes dogs, and many cafés do too. It is one of the most dog-friendly towns in the country.
Timing. Kitchens in the pubs often close between lunch and dinner service, and last orders for food can be earlier than visitors expect — around eight or half past in some places. After a long walk, do not assume you can eat at nine.
Walkers. Nobody will look twice at boots and waterproofs at lunchtime. In the evening the smarter restaurants appreciate a change of clothes, but Keswick is not a formal town.
Self-catering. Booths supermarket on Tithebarn Street is the main food shop and has a car park. There are also several delis and a butcher in the centre for putting together a walk lunch, which is the local habit.
Half the eating in Keswick happens on a hillside. Booths on Tithebarn Street is the main supermarket and the obvious stop, but the town’s delis and the butcher on the main street do a better job of a walk lunch, and there is a bakery trade here that exists largely to fill rucksacks. A flask matters more than you would think: there is nowhere to buy a hot drink on Skiddaw, and the summit is cold in any month.
If you are self-catering, note that the shops close earlier than visitors from cities expect, and Sunday trading is limited.
Keswick is close to being the most dog-friendly town in England, and this extends to the food. The great majority of the pubs welcome dogs in the bar, many of the cafés have water bowls out by the door as a matter of course, and several places advertise dogs-welcome-inside as a selling point. Dogs travel on the Keswick Launch. In practice you can spend a week here with a dog and never plan around it, which is not true of most tourist towns.
Two habits are worth adopting. First, eat lunch early or late — the window between half past twelve and half past one is when every café in the centre fills at once, and twenty minutes either side makes the difference between a table and a queue. Second, book dinner before you go out for the day rather than after you come back; the popular restaurants take their evening bookings early, and arriving at seven on a Saturday in August without a reservation is how people end up eating chips on a bench. Which, admittedly, is not the worst outcome in a town with a lake at the end of the street.
The traditional pubs — the Dog & Gun, the George and the Royal Oak — are the usual answers, and all of them need booking.
The lake shore itself has few restaurants, which surprises people. Café Hope in Hope Park and the theatre café come closest in town; the Lingholm Kitchen and the Chalet at Portinscale are the better bet for a garden and a walk.
Yes, and considerably more than a decade ago. Bar eS, The Round, Fellpack and most of the cafés all cater properly rather than grudgingly.
Pub main courses and café lunches sit around the national average for a tourist town; the restaurants at the top end are noticeably cheaper than equivalents in the south of England.
Planning the rest of the trip? See our guide to walks near Keswick for working up an appetite.