Domaine De La Bretesche

Came for two nights with my husband earlier this month. Beautiful property, even in somewhat dreary weather. Very quiet both in terms of area and number of staying guests. Lovely if you want to totally get away from it all. Very nice welcome and was upgraded to a suite which was gorgeous with an extremely comfy bed. Slept really well. A few things could have been improved upon such as the very squeaky wardrobe door, the lack of tea making facilities, very small choice of teabags, no milk. No kettle so have to use the Nespresso machine to get hot water. Not ideal. Poor minibar and a lighting switch selection that will bamboozle you. Was looking forward to dinner on the Saturday night especially as there is very little in the area. Lovely drink and nibbles in the stable bar then onwards to the dining room. Most diners in couples. Slightly odd atmosphere with very low music which you can hardly hear and bright lighting. Decided upon the 6 course menu. If we knew it was going to take four hours we would have gone with the 3 course. Wine prices are exorbitant so decided to go with the glass option where for the menu you can choose 2, 3 or 4 glasses at 49 Euros each. We chose 4 glasses hoping the sommelier would have paired the wines accordingly. Alas this was not the case. Despite presenting in English (which we really appreciated) he knew very little about the wines and choosing the semi-sweet Chenin to go with a mixture of Amuse-Bouche was not the start we’d hoped for. I asked him why it was chosen and he immediately blamed his superior with no other explanation. At this point we knew the wine choices were going to be ‘interesting’. We were not wrong. All our courses were also quite sweet, and at times, a complete mismatch of flavours and ingredients. It was like Chef was trying too hard and missed the mark each time. The food improved with the desserts making us wonder if the head chef that night was actually the pastry chef. The other three wines presented were disappointing unfortunately and not enjoyable with any of the dishes. The toilets were out of bounds that evening too and all the guests had to use a bathroom in an upstairs bedroom. Acceptable but not ideal. For a Relais & Chateaux property the food and wine offering needs work. The hotel also seems very under staffed. Can I also mention the choice of wine glasses is also very poor for a property like this. Breakfast both mornings was ok, nothing special and not comparable to other Relais properties we have experienced unfortunately. This a beautiful property that could very easily elevate to outstanding if they were to get the food and wine experience up and look at the smaller details.

Our stay there was quite unfortunate - our car broke down (Volvo Assistance proved useless, the car is still in France for God knows how long, struggled to go home with all our luggage), the weather wasn't great and the golf course was undergoing it periodical maintenance but this has nothing to do with our experience at the hotel. We stayed in a villa that we found slightly underequiped for self-catering (things were improved during our stay), the heating took four days to be fixed (to be fair, we were compensated for that) and the selection of TV (sport, English) channels was rather disappointing especially in comparison with a 4 star hotel we stayed at in the previous week and taking into account the weather and being stranded without a car... St some stage we will probably go back but it will be difficult without wanting to risk another nightmarish car journey...

Very children friendly - even though we have small kids, we felt we were in paradise. Being able to enjoy the pool area, the calm and a refined dinner that we could have in the bar instead due to the children were not in the mood of sitting still for a long dinner. We loved it! Thank you!

excellent vacation for family. Even the weather was good. Exceptional staff including the young ones. They were all so friendly and professional while doing their work.

What a wonderful hotel with a lovely staff. The food in both the bistro and the restaurant was excellent. Don’t expect a big gym.