Hoteles Relais & Chateaux en Courcelles-sur-Vesles

The hotel location is good if you are looking for a stop over driving back from the Uk. The hotel grounds are beautiful, very dog friendly as your 4 legged companions can run around and go for a nice walk around the forest. However, the charge for 1 dog is 45 EUR which is certainly the highest charge I’ve paid. Now, that’s when things start to get a bit awkward. The property advertised that they have car electric charging facilities . It’s actually not true. They let you plug your car to their mains, that is if you have your own cable to do so. Booked a room and a 5 course dinner with wine pairing. A decision which was driven by the advertised “Gastronomic Experience at a Gastronomic Fine Dinning Restaurant”. A bit like the car charger situation, the restaurant fell short. Let’s say it is a restaurant but struggled to find the “gastronomy” in it. The food was genuinely below average, to the extent that out of 5 courses, I’ve not eaten 4 of them (not worth the calories). The wines were average quality and didn’t come in sequence. I believe their concept of pairing was to serve you something, with something and hope for the best. Had a cocktail to start with as an aperitif. The house cocktail , with grapefruit juice, crème de cassis topped up with champagne. The result was some grapefruit juice a bit of crème de cassis top up with flat bottom of the bottle champagne. The cocktail was not good ! However, the fact that the cocktail was at 20 EUR , it made it even harder to swallow the beverage. I think this hotel did the big mistake of rising customer’s expectations with false advertising, get them to come, with no other options around , live the experience, how mediocre it can be, then leave . I know it’s a bit harsh! I must say, they’ve apologised, and they were so kind to offer us 2 glasses of champagne at 7:30AM before we got behind the wheels to drive off ;) . I smiled and declined, reminding them that drinking and driving is not what I would call “a match made in heaven”. To conclude, save your money and time . For similar or few EUR extra you can have a much agréable experience at Chateau Beaulieu near Calais.