Château de Pizay

This is a beautiful hotel set amongst the vineyards of Beaujolais. We had a large, quiet room on the ground floor in the older part of the hotel which enabled us to have a delightful breakfast on our patio each morning. We ate in the restaurant twice and enjoyed it each time - the food was good and beautifully presented without being too "nouveau". From the hotel it is easy to tour the many Cru villages of Beaujolais. Note: as the hotel is set amongst a working vineyard a certain amount of agricultural activity should be expected - there is an informative self-guided tour of the vineyards

We arrived quite late having flown into Lyon, collected the hire car and driven up to Pizay however we were in time for dinner. There seemed to be several dining rooms in the old part of the Chateau one of which appeared to be hosting some sort of function. The room we were in was part of the old bit of the Chateau with a very high wooden beamed ceiling much of which was painted with what appeared to be local scenes. We were shown to a table by the Head Waiter and provided with menus. We chose a bottle of the Chateau’s own Beaujolais which was nothing spectacular and then selected some food. The food was excellent, very ‘Nouvelle Cuisine’ delicious and beautifully presented if a little small as far as portion sizes were concerned.

We were very impressed by the quality of the ingredients and creative and tasteful preparation. Both salmon and beef dishes were prepared with quality.

The chef included me in a of his kitchen, which provided much insight into his high standards and the commitment of his kitchen staff. The dinner was exquisitely prepared and presented. This guy deserves a Michelin rating.

We last stayed here 10 years ago. The prices then were reasonable for the facilities.The hotel then raised its prices to a level we thought unacceptable for the standard of accommodation so we stopped staying.We came back again this August taking advantage to a special offer discounting the normal rate by nearly 50% back to the rate we previously paid.First the positive. The restaurant is still good though they are now marking up their own wine by nearly 200% in comparison to buying it at the in house shop - they did not do this before.The duplex room we had was little changed from the same room of 10 years ago and certainly not worth the rack rate of Euro 280 per night. The A/C was inefficient and the mattress on the bed had a very strange smell of dried gravy!The room for breakfast (once with a pleasant view of the hotel grounds) now resembles a not particularly good canteen and was absolutely frantic on the morning we were there as people scrambled for food at the self service buffet. Very down market.The reduced rate we paid (Euro 140) is probably what a room here is worth but not the published rate. Even so if we got the reduced rate again we would not visit again.