A LUXURY tasting menu helped to raise funds for the victims of Cumbria's floods.

Despite personally suffering the effects of Storm Desmond in December, chefs from Kendal’s Castle Dairy restaurant have helped to raise £600 toward the Cumbria Flood Appeal.

The five strong team, led by Head Chef Robert Stacey, took over the restaurant at Kendal College on January 13 to offer an evening of exclusive fine dining for 36 guests. Lancashire food specialists Wellocks donated many of the ingredients.

Diners were treated to a special eight-course tasting menu and guests travelled from far and wide including four diners who made the 400-mile round trip from Northampton to Kendal after the floods meant they missed out on the Castle Dairy’s tasting menu on Christmas Eve.

The menu

A selection of hot & cold canapés;

Confit chicken, watercress, apple and pickled walnut;

Dressed Cornish crab, radish and sea herbs;

Pastrami spice-cured sea trout, yogurt and dill;

Slow cooked rump of lamb, celeriac, cavalo nero and lamb jus gras;

Passion fruit curd, pineapple and coconut;

New season candle-light rhubarb, green tea sorbet;

Coffee and petit fours.