Clique’s restful place by the lake (7)
I believe the answer is:
coterie
'clique's' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'restful place by the lake' is the wordplay.
'restful place' becomes 'cot' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'the lake' becomes 'erie' (Lake Erie is one of the Canadian/US 'Great Lakes').
'cot'+'erie'='COTERIE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for coterie that I've seen before include "Small exclusive group of people" , "Exclusive circle of people, clique" , "Exclusive group with shared interests" , "In-group" , "Set" .)