patrickm123
Google
This very fine hotel restaurant is a striking modern building cleverly implanted within the ruins of the old fortified castle. The dining room, with its fabulous views stretching for miles and miles across the Auvergne landscape, is somewhat reminiscent of the Bras establishment in Laguiole (high praise!). The bedrooms are also strikingly designed: like the restaurant, predominantly white, but in this case relieved with natural wood. Most share the same view as the restaurant but sadly the only one which can be made up as a twin has most of the view blocked by a big chunk of ivy-covered castle – although the architect has aimed to compensate by giving this room a generous balcony complete with table and chairs. We liked the way the shower room can be open to the bedroom and therefore to the view (such as it was in our case) or closed off at the flick of a switch that wound a blind down. ||||There are normally tea and nespresso coffee making facilities in the hall just outside the bedrooms but for some reason these were missing when we checked in and rather than make us wait while this was sorted out the manager sent a tray of superior teas to our room. Nice touch. The mini bar was empty (for Covid reasons presumably) but we appreciated the complimentary mineral water and bar of homemade chocolate. In fact all aspects of the room were high quality – for example very attractive water glasses both in the room and bathroom. (Plastic ones are creeping into so many hotels that should do better.)||||All in all very good value at 135 Euros.||||So on to the restaurant… we opted for the (theoretically) seven course Racines menu at 58 Euros with a fish main course. The only choice is whether you have fish or meat or both – pushing the price up to 75 Euros. I say “theoretically” because the seven courses are 1. Amuse-bouches; 2. Soup; 3. Fish; 4. Cheese; 5. Pre-Dessert; 6. Dessert; 7. Gourmandises. Most restaurants would call that four courses, counting only 2, 3, 4 and 6. So it’s more expensive than it looks on first reading the menu. It’s also considerably lighter than expected, which happened to quite suit us on this occasion, but most diners would probably want to add in the extra course. ||||That said, there was lot of originality, often brought to bear on thoroughly traditional Auvergne dishes and ingredients which was very appealing. Presentation was outstanding, with many bits of “kit” seemingly specially designed for this chef and often very suggestive of the local landscape, vegetation etc. ||||Of the three tiny amuses, two were excellent but one struck me as subtle to the point of almost vanishing on the palate, despite a long list of elaborate ingredients carefully announced. The soup was a smartly served variant on traditional local cheese and potato soups: interesting but not really memorable. We were encouraged to follow tradition (apparently) and “rinse” the bowl with red wine. Again a nice touch of respect for the region’s humble culinary past. The rainbow trout was served “confit” – incredibly lightly cooked and delicious, with tiny trompette de mort ravioli and a nettle sauce - but it really was very small for a main course. The cheese board was exceptional – all local apart from one – and served quite generously. Then a tiny but fascinating predessert focussed on the flavour of hay, before the main one featuring chocolate, praline and pear, with a verveine and lime sorbet. Finally the very unusual “gourmandise” consisted mainly of a miniature sponge cake, accompanied by a tiny dish of jam and another of cream…. as if we were all to make up our own Victoria sponge. A really rather odd idea. And there simply wasn’t enough jam or cream to match the sponge, small as it was. We opted for coffee to accompany this, which arrived on our bill at a swingeing 5.50 per cup. All the more annoying as we could have made exactly the same coffee for nothing using the machine outside our room.||||And talking of the bill, we were not greatly pleased to find the wine that we had drunk over-charged by 5 euros. The manager muttered something about confusing two vintages but as there was only one on the wine list it didn’t entirely convince.||||Breakfast was all top quality and served in the spectacular dining room, but slightly marred by things like the jam and honey being served in portions that would have been mean even for one let alone two. I’m sure more would have been brought if we had asked but with the waiter disappearing for long periods of time it just needed too much patience.||||All in all I would certainly return. Lots of real positives but just a few too many small negatives for 5 stars.
