If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR171.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Ville-d'Avray is no oil painting… but wait, yes it is – by Camille Corot, who lends his name to the town’s upscale boutique hotel Les Étangs de Corot. There’s artistic heritage to this hotel just outside Paris, from its Corot-muralled suites and rotation of modern resident artworks, to its locale beside the forest-fringed ponds that Corot so loved to paint. Curated interiors, artful plates at Rémi Chambard’s award-winning restaurant, and a sizeable Phytomer spa are the welcome extras that prove this hotel is more than a pretty picture.
Noon; check-in is from 4pm. Both are flexible, subject to availability and an extra charge.
Prices
Double rooms from £161.38 (€188), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €8.13 per person per night on check-out.
More details
Rates are room-only but you can buy Continental breakfast, including a vast spread of breads, pastries, cakes, charcuterie, cheese, eggs and more, at Café des Artistes from €27 a person.
Also
Lifts take you to all floors and there are two wheelchair-adapted rooms – one Aquarelle Room and one Impressionist Room. Please note that the listed paillotes and whirlpool suites are not wheelchair accessible.
Please note
Restaurant de Corot, the hotel’s fine dining spot, is open from Wednesday to Saturday in the evenings, and on Fridays and Saturdays for lunch, and is worth aligning your stay.
At the hotel
Bikes to borrow (including a tandem), e-bikes to hire, concierge, umbrellas, and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: TV with Chromecast, climate control, Nespresso coffee machine, tea-making kit, minibar, free bottled water, bathrobes and slippers, and Phytomer bath products.
Our favourite rooms
All the rooms conjure painterly playfulness with zingy Pierre Frey wallcoverings or Camille Corot-inspired murals. Romantic and Impressionist Rooms come with spacious sitting areas and are our pick of the bunch. The capacious Barbizon Suite sleeps up to four and has two bathrooms, but we’re eyeing the Corot Suite for its private terrace and sunny aspect.
Poolside
There’s no pool at the hotel and swimming in the ponds is forbidden, but there’s an outdoor Jacuzzi, as well as private whirlpool suites at the hotel’s spa (for the latter, you’ll need to book ahead).
Spa
The 500-square-metre spa, Les Bains de Corot, begins in the hotel basement and extends to reservation-only whirlpool suites with adjoining lounge areas on the lower floor of the paillote. As well as a sauna and outdoor Jacuzzi, this restorative retreat has eight treatment rooms, including two for couples, where Phytomer facials and massages are delivered in the most serene of settings.
Packing tips
Nod to the artistic heritage of your surroundings with asymmetrical tailoring, abstract prints and statement accessories.
Also
Turn a cycle ride into a tryst with a picnic hamper for two, available on request if ordered the day before – whether you savour it on a bench by the ponds or beneath the woodland canopy is up to you.
Children
Welcome. Larger rooms take a cot and/or extra bed (from €100 a night); connecting rooms are available; the Barbizon Suite sleeps four, and infant bath products, bottle warmers and a welcome toy are all provided, plus staff can help arrange babysitting.
Sustainability efforts
The hotel’s kitchen sources produce and ingredients locally where possible. Bath products are full size and refillable, and waste is sorted for recycling.
Closest to the pond in Les Paillotes or beneath strings of light bulbs in the courtyard are summer winners; opt for a table by the floor-to-ceiling windows at Le Corot, or overlooking the courtyard at Le Café des Artistes.
Dress Code
Don your smartest threads for Le Corot – not a prerequisite but it fits the special-occasion mood. You’ll want tactical layers to prolong the evening if you’re dining alfresco, and more casual attire is fine at Le Café des Artistes.
Hotel restaurant
If you’re staying at Les Étangs de Corot, Le Corot is likely half the reason: Rémi Chambard has been in charge of the kitchens here since 2012 and is lauded for his seasonally inspired, refined-rustic plates that showcase ingredients from regional producers – and are yours to coo over in a set tasting menu, deftly paired with wine from the hotel’s substantial cellar. The dining room is gleaming white with arcadian details and Scandi-inspired accents, plus there’s a chef’s table for 10 (available for private dinners). Expect storied morceaux such as Chambard’s signature tarte d’Avray, a chicken-and-mushroom delicacy inspired by a pie from a local butcher’s. Le Café des Artistes, with tables indoors and spilling onto the courtyard, is the hotel’s more casual dining spot, open for a vast breakfast spread daily, lunch and dinner. For low-key days when you’re not planning on moving far from the hotel, afternoon tea at Bar Le Camille serves as a decadent intermission with patisserie, savoury treats and optional Champagne.
Hotel bar
The glass-walled cellar at Le Corot is the setting for sommelier-led wine tastings, which are a regular calendar fixture. Bar Le Camille, beside the lobby, is a laidback lounge where the cocktails are artist-themed and accompanied by a light menu of snacks and small plates: this is also the setting for afternoon tea. Les Paillotes is the hotel’s seasonal bar, lodged in the open-sided, timbered gallery overlooking the ponds: bag a cushion-strewn sofa and sip on kir royales at your leisure.
Last orders
Le Corot opens Wednesday to Saturday for dinner, and for lunch on Fridays and Saturdays. Le Café des Artists opens 7am–10.30am; then 12.30pm–3pm for lunch, and 7.30pm–11pm for dinner. Afternoon tea hours are 2pm–7pm. Both bars pour till midnight.
Room service
You can order dishes to your door during kitchen hours, and at all other times a menu of snacks, cold cuts and croque monsieurs can be summoned to the rescue.
Between Paris and Versailles, Les Étangs de Corot is in Ville-d'Avray, overlooking the town’s scenic ponds that are famed for featuring in Camille Corot’s paintings.
Planes
International flights touch down at Paris-Orly (40 minutes away by road) or Paris-Charles de Gaulle (an hour and a quarter’s drive). With at least 24 hours’ notice, the hotel can arrange private transfers from either airport, from €140 one way.
Trains
Sèvres-Ville-d’Avray is a hop on the RER from the capital’s Gare Saint-Lazare; and from there, it’s a 20-minute walk to the hotel, or you can take a taxi or bus and be there in five minutes.
Automobiles
For a weekend escape, it’s entirely feasible to navigate sans auto, with the capital reachable by train, and the Palace of Versailles a cab or organised tour away. For longer stays, bringing wheels will give you the freedom to explore the Hauts-de-Seine. The hotel has private parking onsite from €20 a night.
Other
For jaunts into the forest or around the ponds, you can borrow one of the hotel’s bicycles (including tandems) or hire an e-bike.
Worth getting out of bed for
France’s capital, with its museums, shops and galleries, are all just 20 minutes away by RER train. And the Palaces of Versailles are closer still – worthy of a full day trip, which can be tailored as you wish with a private history tour, fishing in the regal ponds (seasonal restrictions), or by taking along one of the hotel’s picnic hampers. But Ville-d'Avray is no mere bland filling in the cultural sandwich: as well is its fêted ponds, it has Camille Corot’s home and sightseeing tours of its artistic heritage, plus bikes you can borrow (or e-bikes to hire) for cycles through the woods towards Saint-Cloud. Les Étangs de Corot itself offers afternoon tea, Sunday morning yoga classes, and all that the Phytomer spa has to offer.
Local restaurants
On a short break, you’re unlikely to wander beyond the hotel’s duo of dining spots, but you have options… Dine in stately surroundings at former-hotel L’Entracte in Ville-d'Avray, where an à la carte menu features classic plates including beef tartare and grilled salmon fillet. La Tête Noire in Marne La Coquette offers comfort food such as burgers and fish and chips alongside buttery haddock, Charolais beef and confit duck. In the park at Saint-Cloud, a window-walled dining room with more tables alfresco in the gravelled courtyard hosts La Brumaire, a casual spot for light bites (charcuterie and cheese platters or baked Camembert) or heartier mains.
Local bars
Walkable from the hotel, le VDA Bar is primarily a wine shop but serves French vintages by the glass, accompanied by a menu of small plates.
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 restaurant and spa retreat just south of Paris and unpacked their Phytomer haul and Camille Corot prints, a full account of their culture-crammed break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Les Étangs de Corot in Hauts-de-Seine…
Masterpieces take time… When the Beautiful Life hotel group acquired Les Étangs de Corot, this boutique bolthole remained closed for two years while it was overhauled. Let’s start with the canvas: overlooking the ponds that were painted with such frequency by Camille Corot that they’re now a national monument, the hotel has an enviable setting. Then there’s its listed paillotes – a timber-and-thatch gallery between courtyard and ponds – which houses a summer-ready bar up top and, on the lower floor, tucked-away whirlpool suites. In broad brushstrokes, the hotel’s appeal revolves around its fairylit courtyard, polished interiors and Michelin-starred restaurant. But it’s etched with finer detail, too: customised outings to the Palace of Versailles; bikes you can borrow for forays into the forest, and staff with the friendliness and knowhow, ready to fix you anything from a cab to an off-list cocktail. We’re not sure if it’s good or bad news that this work of art’s a one-off…
