Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons

England
Europe

The Experience

Staying here is like stepping back into a gentler, more elegant era where good manners, cream teas and dressing up for dinner are the order of the day. It starts when the gravel crunches beneath your tires as you sweep into the drive. A beaming youth steps out across the threshold of a 17th-century manor house to meet you. Across extensive lawns there is the sound of croquet at play, the gentle thwack of ball and mallet. Inside, a fire crackles in the grate, a carriage clock ticks; there is the rustle of newspapers being read and the whispering of a couple enjoying a game of Scrabble.

The Rooms

After the rather sedate atmosphere of the public spaces downstairs, some of the bedrooms are a surprise. They're ultra-comfortable and full of sex appeal and fantasy, with names like Opium and Rouge et Noir, featuring perhaps an open fire and Ming dynasty carving in the former and scarlet furnishings and black lacquer floors in the latter. For terraces and patios, head to the Garden Wing, while rooms in the Main House tend to exude a more restrained and traditional elegance. Standard rooms, while smaller, are just as brilliantly executed, each with its own mood and personality.

The Service

They don't just serve you, they nurse you through the whole experience, ensuring that for all the two Michelin stars and vintage wines, Le Manoir is a very unintimidating place to stay. The head sommelier is approachable, happy to tutor you on the best dessert wines; reception welcomes you by name; and talented hotel owner-chef Raymond Blanc himself does the rounds at dinner, welcoming guests as though into his own home.

The Highlights

Dinner is worth dressing up for—with course upon course of perfectly balanced flavors from produce grown on the estate, as well as an extensive wine list. (This list now sits next to an exclusive glass collection created by Raymond Blanc, chef-patron of Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons and prestigious wine glass company, Spiegelau.) You'll need to walk off the calories around the 25 acres, which evidently is Blanc's labor of love. Don't miss the kitchen garden, where more than 90 types of vegetables and 70 varieties of herbs supply the restaurant. Pause by the English water garden, originally cultivated by monks, and head for the Japanese Tea Garden. Cross over its charming gravel bridge and you'll find a water basin for the ritual of hand washing. Slowing your pace to snail, you reach the oriental tea hut across a little path of stepping stones where you're invited, as a plaque reads, to "shake off the dust of the world," an apt description for the otherworldly experience that is the Manoir aux Quat' Saisons.

 

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