Landes · Aquitaine

Les Prés d'Eugénie

Michel Guérard's country house in the Landes — a three-star kitchen, a thermal cure and a garden, held together by the same hand for half a century.

La note

A house, a kitchen and a thermal cure, kept by the same hand for half a century. Few addresses in France ask so much of the journey, and answer it so quietly.

From the editors · Vedere House

Les particularités

Style: Country house, in the Landes
Rooms: Spread between three houses, behind the gardens
Table: Three stars at dinner; lighter at noon
Cure: Thermal spa on the property, by appointment
Best for: A long weekend, taken slowly
Season: Spring through autumn, most fragrant

The town owes its name to an empress, and the property keeps the name in turn. To arrive at Les Prés d'Eugénie is to find a village arranged around a single garden — a hedge, a lane, a chapel, a kitchen — held together by the rhythm of the meals served at its centre.

Michel Guérard built much of what stands here, and the kitchen he wrote remains the standard the rest is measured against. Cuisine minceur, that quiet revolution of the seventies, was invented in this dining room, and the menu still keeps it on the page beside the gastronomic. Whichever you choose, the ingredient walked into the kitchen the same morning.

The trip is long. The Landes are four hours from Paris by rail, and another twenty minutes by car after that. Few houses in France ask so much of the journey. Few answer it so completely.

Moments choisis

The thermal-spa welcome lounge under exposed beams, fireplace lit and tisanes laid on a country table.

The morning at the cure

Thermal water, a low-lit room, an hour with nothing on the schedule. The day begins where the rest of the trip ends.

A long outdoor table at La Ferme aux Grives, sunflowers in a clay pot and pale cast-iron chairs against a picket gate.

Dinner, the cuisine

Michel Guérard wrote the manual for cuisine minceur here in the seventies, and the kitchen still keeps it on the page next to the gastronomic. Both arrive in the same room.

The Maison Rose at dusk, a hedged path lit between low parterres leading to its open door.

The garden, between meals

Herbs cut for the lunch you'll eat, walked past on the way to a chair under a tree. The shortest journey on the property is the most considered.

Dans la maison

A four-poster suite under exposed beams, white linen and gingham at midday, French doors open to the terrace.

A table for two in a wood-panelled dining room, the Empress Eugénie watching from an oval frame.

A Louis XVI armchair beside an open French window, mustard curtains drawn back to morning light.

A guest at the cure, alone with a book in an outdoor wooden bath, the property's roofline beyond.

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