Château de Vignée

Style

Château-coated modernity

Setting

River Lesse and more

Take your time perusing the Château de Vignée ‘menu’: you’ll want to consider what you’d like from its grandly-housed contemporary rooms and suites, cocooning spa, sauna and indoor pool, and elegant riverside grounds. May we recommend the specials: that’s several sittings at the hotel’s starred restaurant by Marius Bosmans, followed by wine tasting at the 13,000-bottle cellar, and perhaps a soothing treatment or two at the spa; and you may wish to add a side helping of forays into the picturesque Ardennes countryside. Et voilà.

Facilities

Rooms

24, including five suites.

Checkout

11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

More Details

Rates are room-only but you can buy breakfast at the hotel, served in the Bordeaux room, from €35 (and from €15 for a child).

Also

Some ground-floor rooms in the Lesse wing are suitable for those with mobility issues, and one Superior Room is wheelchair-adapted with widened doorways, grab rails in the bathroom and a roll-in shower.

Hotel Closed

Château de Vignée is open all year round, but its gastronomic restaurant Arden closes for a two-week holiday each summer (in June or July, but precise dates vary) and select dates in September and December, so you’re advised to check ahead.

Free Internet Access

Laundry

Pet Friendly

Pool

On-Site Restaurant

Room Service

Spa

At the Hotel

Riverside terrace, free WiFi. In rooms: TV, air-conditioning, Nespresso machine, tea-making kit, minibar, free bottled water, bathrobes, and Désirée and Château de Vignée bath products.

Our Favourite Rooms

This is an estate stay that’s been completely chât-eauverhauled with sleek modernity. Rooms in the main building come with more colour and exuberant touches; for pared-back elegance, you may prefer the rooms in the Lesse wing. For a deck of one’s own looking onto the garden, book a Superior Room. And it’s de rigueur to mention the pied-à-terre charms of the two-bedroom Royal Suite in the eaves.

Poolside

The spa’s indoor pool is a decent size for lengths and sits in a glass-walled annexe where you’ll also find the hammam.

Spa

A modern complex of two treatment rooms, changing areas and lockers, the spa at Château de Vignée also features a hammam and indoor pool. Down a short flight of stairs, there’s also a sauna, with a floor-to-ceiling window that looks onto the river.

Packing Tips

This is hunting-shooting-fishing country, so there’s an option to channel gamekeeper-chic via woollen tailoring, statement boots, checks, fine knits and blousey scarves.

Also

In spite of its modern interiors, Château de Vignée has lived a few lives – dating back to the 17th century, during the Second World War it was a field hospital.

Children

An extra bed can be added in most rooms, there’s a two-bedroom suite, and babysitting can be arranged (from €35 an hour, booked ahead). The emphasis on food and wine, however, means you’ll find more couples than families here.

Gallery

Food & Drink

Top Table

Any table secured at Arden is a boon, which is why you should secure your restaurant reservations along with your hotel stay. For sips amid the scenery, take a glass to the riverside terrace.

Dress Code

Finery as befits the finest of dining.

Hotel Restaurant

Starred restaurant Arden is the main reason anyone checks in at Château de Vignée – an opportunity to feast on Marius Bosmans’ fêted fare, then retire, sated, to your luxurious lodgings, only steps away. It’s set in a double-height dining room with floor-to-ceiling glass panels at one end, and its contemporary shades-of-taupe decor is designed to let dinner do the talking… We suspect Marius Bosmans may own more than one pair of tweezers, looking at the precision-plated creations that are whisked to cloth-topped tables. Menu titles nod to the chef’s love of terroir (Sweets from the Land, Ardennes treasures), encapsulated in delicate, balanced dishes such as mackerel with strawberry and radish, red gurnard with red pepper and basil, or lamb ‘Quercy’ with carrot and chermoula. The wine pairing, as you’d expect, is in safe hands, with thousands of bottles stashed in the château’s cellar to call upon. Particular highlights of the week are Friday and Saturday night’s six- or seven-course tasting menus. When Arden is closed you can dine at Lounge by Château de Vignée, the hotel’s bistro, which is a barn-like space for enjoying a five-course menu featuring prawn with artichoke, girolles and parmesan, or roasted sea bass with bouillabaisse and fennel.

Hotel Bar

Standing in the hotel courtyard, a brick ring (suggesting a fountain) draws the eye: in fact, this is the over-sized skylight above a vast circular table in the château’s wine cellar – an oenophile’s dream of a basement, atmospherically lit with modern moody-hued decor, high chairs at cask-tables, and glass-encased racks of fine wines from around the globe, although predominantly French – all 13,000 of them. Book a sommelier-led wine tasting to sniff, swirl and sip a few cellar highlights.

Last Orders

Dine at Arden, Wednesday to Saturday, between 7pm and 8pm, or lunch from noon until 2pm on Thursdays, Fridays and the first Sunday of every month. Lounge by Château de Vignée is open when Arden is not, plus on Saturday evenings.

Room Service

Select dishes are available between noon and 10pm.

Planes

Brussels, just over an hour away by road, is the nearest international airport, and private transfers can be arranged (price on enquiry).

Trains

You’ll need a connection to Namur (there’s a direct link from Brussels-Zuid) to pick up the regional service to Rochefort-Jemelle, which is a 20-minute drive from the château; private transfers can be arranged (price on enquiry).

Automobiles

There’s a carpark at the hotel with free valet parking and paid electric-vehicle charging points.

Worth Getting Out of Bed For

Château de Vignée may lie in Belgium but it’s also in the Ardennes, just 20 minutes by road from the French border, and set in a pastoral playground that continues to draw guests who come here to hunt during the winter season. You’re also in a protected geopark in Rochefort – the Famenne-Ardenne – a status earned by the region’s network of caves, quarries, and megaliths. Visit the millennia-old standing stones (Pierres du Diable) at Forrières, or tour the labyrinthine caves of Han-sur-Lesse, where there’s also a museum dedicated to the area’s prehistory, and a wildlife park, home to brown bears, wolverines and lynxes. Rochefort is home to the archeological ruins of a Roman-Gallo villa at Malagne. And although it’s all about the grapes at your château stay, Rochefort’s Cistercian monks at L’Abbaye de Notre-Dame de Saint Remy are more concerned with cheese and Trappist brews: the abbey is open to the public when there are church services, but if it’s the monastic produce you want to sample, you’ll find it in various bars and delis in Rochefort.

Earn or Redeem Points with World of Hyatt

This Mr & Mrs Smith hotel participates in the World of Hyatt loyalty program. As a member, you can earn and redeem points and enjoy exclusive benefits for qualifying nights. .