Cognac, France

La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin

Price per night from$298.70

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR288.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin Photos

Style

Barrelful of botanical bliss

Setting

Rêve by the river Charente

Explore

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The hippest new sip in the Cognac region, La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin offers the perfect blend of luxe interiors and culinary craftsmanship in a beautiful botanical and historic setting. This 19th-century neoclassical villa stands gracefully on the meandering river Charente, amid 12 acres of lush lawns, gardens and in the presence of a majestic 150-year-old sequoia tree. This is the perfect base from which to discover the libation Victor Hugo coined ‘the liqueur of the gods’, while waking to the sound of birdsong, taking in the garden views and surrounding yourself with distilled natural beauty.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

Homemade cocktail on arrival and free room upgrade (subject to availability) for all Smith guests

Facilities

Photos La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin facilities

Need to know

Rooms

12, including one suite.

Check–Out

Noon, but flexible subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3.30pm.

More details

Rates include a breakfast of sweet and savoury treats.

Also

Staff are trained to welcome people with disabilities and the hotel can also provide a wheelchair. Public areas and one room are accessible.

At the hotel

Free WiFi throughout; 12 acres of landscaped gardens; canoes and electric bikes to borrow (€30 a time); and electric boat available for a fee. In rooms: bathrobes; slippers; locally hand-made organic bath products by L'O des Vignes; minibar; TV; sound system; tea- and coffee-making kit; and Nespresso coffee maker.

Our favourite rooms

There are 12 rooms at La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin. Eight rooms are in the main house and four rooms are in the nearby Petit Chai (aka the barrel warehouse). Although more or less identical in style, each has a different outlook or type of outside space on offer. The Junior Suite has a gorgeous view over the garden and sequoia tree along with a separate TV and dressing room area.

Poolside

Seek reprieve from the summer rays in the petite but picturesque 10-metre outdoor swimming pool, shaded by the trees.

Packing tips

Bring a taste for the finer things and a large suitcase for all the bottles you'll bring back.

Also

The hotel works with a masseur who brings all equipment to provide stress-melting in-room kneading.

Children

Children of all ages are welcome and there are rooms that can connect to create two-bedroom suites. The concierge can also arrange babysitting (ask when booking) for a fee.

Food and Drink

Photos La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin food and drink

Top Table

The Brasserie des Flâneurs, housed in the former distillery, offers a larger restaurant space and terrace if you’d like a soundtrack of birdsong and gorgeous garden views to accompany your meal. They also offer a communal table that can seat 16 if needed.

Dress Code

Pour yourself into something suitably chic.

Hotel restaurant

The hotel’s exclusive restaurant, Notes, helmed by Anthony Carballo, crafts gastronomic masterpieces in the form of carte blanche four- or seven-course blind-tasting menus. The upscale space, designed for just 20 covers, feels intimate yet airy and bright, with light bouncing off mirrors and gilded cornicing, punctuated with crimson curtains and rose-tinted glassware. Be it light-as-a-cloud crab with fennel and caviar, shoulder of lamb in aubergine leaves served with ravioli or flower-adorned rhubarb desserts, each artfully devised dish will delight the eyes and palate in equal measure.

Meanwhile, the Brasserie des Flâneurs invites guests to savour seasonal French dishes, with ingredients thoughtfully sourced from the adjacent gardens; citrus fruit from the greenhouse, honey from the beehive, freshly picked coriander, and eggs from the resident chickens. Menu highlights include trout farmed in Gensac-la-Pallue, prepared as tataki or gravlax or matured beef sirloin in Béarnaise sauce, not forgetting some irresistible sides of crispy dauphinoise potatoes, garden vegetable tian and tangy Mesclun salad.

Hotel bar

Not only can you sample a huge selection of local wines and velvety cognacs here, but you can also get stuck into sweet delicacies devised by the pastry chef at any time, at the hotel’s bar and tearoom, with ingredients such as lime, coriander and honey all sourced from the hotel’s garden. The bar is open 11am to 1pm and 6pm to 11pm.

Last orders

Notes is open Wednesday to Friday from 7.30pm to 9.30pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 12.30pm to 2pm and from 7.30pm to 9.30pm. The Brasserie des Flâneurs opens Friday to Tuesday from noon to 14.30pm and from 19.30pm to 21.30pm.

Room service

Dine in your room around the clock.

Location

Photos La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin location
Address
La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin
12 Rue de la Nauve
Cognac
16100
France

La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin is situated in the commune of Cognac, right on the restful River Charente in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of south-western France.

Planes

You can reach the hotel from both Bordeaux and La Rochelle airports in around 90 minutes by car. The hotel is able to book transfers for around €150 one-way, depending on the service provider.

Trains

Cognac is flanked by Angoulême and Saintes stations. You can travel into these larger hubs direct from Paris, Bordeaux and other major cities (a train from La Rochelle gets you to Saintes in under an hour). Your connection to Cognac station will then take somewhere between 30-minutes to an hour and it’s a six-minute drive to the hotel from there.

Automobiles

The hotel has a free private car park equipped with EV-chargers and bike racks. There is also a free valet-parking service.

Other

Your trip to La Nauve wouldn’t be complete without a pootle along the River Charente. Take a ride on the hotel’s electric-powered boat. Prices start at €100.

Worth getting out of bed for

The biggest dilemma when visiting Cognac, is deciding which distillery tours to go on, and which of the 200-plus local producers to head to first. The big guns – Rémy Martin, Hennessy, Martell and Courvoisier all offer tours, but personalised tours by the smaller independents Delamain in nearby Jarnac or Maison Painturaud Frères are not to be missed. 

You may well need to clear your head after a night of cognac quaffing, in which case you can’t beat a gentle e-bike ride along the Charentais trails through rolling vineyards. A boat-trip down the river Charente on the hotel’s electric vedette may also be just what the doctor ordered; or it’s just a half-hour walk into central Cognac where you can explore the livelier side of town.

The hotel’s concierge can arrange canoeing and picnics on the river, or you could even sail over the vineyards in a hot-air balloon (with a Charente-born pilot who can show you the sights) and marvel at the surrounding countryside – simply magnifique. 

Local restaurants

Head to Poulpette in Cognac town for a small weekly-changing menu made up of locally produced organic ingredients. From tender and flavourful fish to the sweetest tomatoes, it’s a low-key hangout serving exquisite eats (and a selection of 50 cognacs to try too). In Segonzac, Gueuleton serves up deep dishes of garlick-y snails, huge steaks cooked over flames, and rugged charcuterie boards. Comptoir 17 is a sleek, modern lunching spot with a changing blackboard of dishes, and Restaurant La Maison has a Middle Eastern flavour with falafel or cumin-rubbed lamb in a peppery tomato sauce with fruity couscous. Try the unique 'tomato' dessert too, with confit tomatoes and raspberries in vanilla cream with a raspberry-basil sorbet.

Local bars

For cognac-slugged cocktails, try Bar Luciole, a low-lit antique space for the likes of the Tea Bo, with cognac, peach cream, lemon juice and cane sugar; or the Dandy, with cognac, vermouth infused with tobacco smoke, Amérisse and maraschino.

Reviews

Photos La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this relaxing riverside hotel in Cognac and unpacked their galette charentaise and bottle of l'eau de vie, a full account of their luxury break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin…

Surrounded by sun-dappled woodland worthy of a Manet-style picnic, the allure of La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin begins at its neoclassical ornate façade which beckons visitors to explore the grandeur within. 

‘Oohs’ and ‘aahs’ will follow once you see the statement staircase made of white French Avy limestone, above which a cascading chandelier, the colour of cognac, offers a spectacular display of gleaming glass globes made by Murano glassmakers Barovier & Toso. In the lobby, another light installation in shades of blue resembles a splash of water suspended in the air.

With the hotel having been completely gutted and remodelled you’ll see this modern interpretation of luxury continues into the bedrooms. A bold bespoke curved wooden bedhead with integrated nightstands takes centre-stage; the geometric design (which also translates to the wardrobes) is inspired by the 150-year-old sequoia tree outside. End-oak parquet floors flicker with brass inlay, adding another artistic touch, while the bathrooms boast marble, onyx and locally-made organic soaps by L’O des Vignes.

The manicured gardens, though recently planted, hold huge potential; already handsome yet soon to blossom into a verdant paradise. And there’s history here too. You may get a room in the Petit Chai (or barrel warehouse – which is far more comfortable than it sounds), while a shipping canal running flush with the River Charente boasts 18th- and 19th-century relics of the hoists and gantries of Cognac’s past.

But we wouldn’t blame you if you chose La Nauve for its emphasis on great food. Gastronomic wonders await at every turn. At the hotel’s renowned restaurant, Notes, Anthony Carballo orchestrates a symphony of innovative flavours that won’t disappoint. Brasserie des Flâneurs tempts with farm-to-table delights, plucked from the lush gardens. The bar and tea room is the place to enjoy home-made honey infused sweet treats made by the pastry chef. Throw in a lengthy wine list, a fine collection of cognacs and ambrosial cocktails and you have a haven of tastes that leaves no craving left unattended.

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