Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, A Belmond Hotel, Oxfordshire

Character and identity

Set on nearly 30 acres of Oxfordshire countryside in the village of Great Milton, this 15th century manor has been Raymond Blanc's gastronomic stage since 1984. The 32 bedrooms and suites are individually designed by Blanc himself: the Orchid layers textured grass paper and a gold palette over a marble bathroom; the Jade nods to Asian paddy fields; the Botticelli pairs freestanding tubs with a Renaissance mural. The kitchen garden grows 90-plus vegetables and 70 herbs, an 800-tree orchard supplies the pass, and a Japanese tea garden and spring-fed water garden round out the grounds. One restaurant, two Michelin stars held for more than 35 years.

Who's it for

Bottom line

Everything here orbits Blanc's kitchen and gardens; the rooms, the schools, the grounds all exist to frame the two-Michelin-star table, and that focus is the point. Book a garden-view room, plan around autumn when the European-Asian cooking peaks on game and root vegetables, and treat the restaurant as the reason you came. Reopens after 2027.