Lunch at the Grand Velum

Housed in an elegant plant-filled greenhouse, Le Grand Velum is an absolute must for the Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire’s many epicurean visitors: a true workshop of gastronomic creation where culinary creator François-Xavier Bogard conjures up innovative menus in line with the International Garden Festival’s themes. 
Every year, his inventive, highly sophisticated cuisine highlights novel flavours and colours celebrating ingredients mostly produced by certified organic farming and prioritising short distribution channels. At Le Grand Velum, enjoying a meal is a truly rejuvenating event, as the nutritional, dietary and sensorial qualities of the dishes it serves are its top priority. 
An unforgettable gourmet experience.

Less than 2 hours from Paris and open all year round, the Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire overlooks the river, inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List as a cultural landscape.
The Domain’s emblematic event, the International Garden Festival is an international rendezvous on no account to be missed out on, devoted to creation, imagination, poetry and nature. Recognised by garden professionals and amateurs alike since 1992, it welcomes landscapers and designers from all four corners of the globe with each passing year.
2024 theme: The life-source garden
Each year the Centre for Arts and Nature invites internationally renowned artists and photographers to come and create unprecedented and original works on the theme of nature. Scattered across the 32 hectares of the site, the works of art – the fruit of a genuine meeting between the minds of the artists and the spirit of the Domain – offer visitors an introductory tour rich in discoveries, surprises and emotions.
Overlooking the River Loire, inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List as a cultural landscape, the Château of Chaumont-sur-Loire is one of the most remarkable châteaux of the Loire Valley. Property of Queen Catherine de’ Medici followed by her rival, Diane de Poitiers, during the 16^th century, the château has welcomed a number of famous figures throughout its history including Nostradamus, the sculptor Nini, Benjamin Franklin and Germaine de Staël. At the end of the 19^th century, it underwent an intensely influential period filled with high-society parties as the Princess de Broglie, the last private owner of the Domain, brought extraordinary modernity to the Château.

If you would like to stay a while longer, the art and nature hotel, Le Bois des Chambres, is located just 300 metres from the Domain.

Perfectly integrated into the landscape, “Le Bois des Chambres” comprises 39 rooms, a restaurant with seating for 70 diners and a terrace giving onto a pond, and two multipurpose areas. Bordered by hedges and pathways planted with espaliered trees, the hotel’s many gardens are long and narrow, as if resulting from successive divisions of a piece of farmland. They accommodate vegetable crops, flower-filled fields and aromatic plants alike. A living environment surrounded by nature, with relaxation as the watchword, “Le Bois des Chambres” combines forms of extraordinary inventiveness, whether they apply to guests’ comfort, the services on offer, or respect for the environment. Poetic and resolutely unconventional, the hotel cultivates a spirit of creation, encouraging reading, cultural discovery and exchanges, and resisting any temptation to standardise emotions and sensations. There’s no point in looking for a television in the rooms. There aren’t any!

“Le Grand Chaume” is a unique piece of architecture at the service of outstanding sustainable gastronomy. Committed to products in their natural state, he creates amazing menus that focus on the Loire’s banks, embracing Sologne, Perche, Brenne and Beauce. He draws his inspiration from these rich terroirs. Located on the site of the former farmhouse itself, the restaurant welcomes aficionados of authentic fine dining in an altogether atypical architectural and decorative setting. Inspired by the turrets of Renaissance châteaux and farmers’ haystacks, a huge thatch flower houses a series of areas opening onto the terrace in front of the pond, the farmyard or simply the landscape as a whole. The dishes on the menu are the result of creativity put to the service of a truly astonishing cuisine. Prioritising the Domain’s own products and those of the Region’s terroirs, they do their all to delight the taste buds while respecting environmental ethics. Indulgence and joy are the virtues cultivated and honoured here. Meats and wines alike are selected from among regional products.