Review of Hotel Le Vieux Manoir, Murten-Meyriez, Switzerland

UPDATE: out of business

Beautiful, romantic lakeside manor with a wonderful park and a good, but over-priced restaurant:

This amazing lakeside manor has been renovated a short time ago and this with a good result (as this was our first stay here we do not know how it looked before …). There is a vast, beautiful park with a lot of mature trees, deck chairs anywhere and even a wooden raft with a few chairs!

Apart from the rooms in the manor there is also a “stilt” guesthouse (hidden by treetops but nevertheless obstructing the view on the lake …) and a lake house with private beach, boat and sauna. As far as further infrastructure is concerned we were astonished to learn that there is no swimming pool, no fitness room, no SPA, unusual for a five star hotel and given the rather steep rates for this region of Switzerland.



For our family (one teenage son) we booked an adequately sized and nicely furnished junior suite with a lakeside balcony. There was a walk-in closet and a spacious bathroom with two sinks. To our surprise, there was only a tub with a movable glass partition but no separate shower, a little bit uncommon for hotel of this class! The public area of the hotel especially the bar and the salon for afternoon tea are beautifully designed, nicely done!

The staff was eager to please although there was still room of improvement, that concerns also the manager. When checking in we were offered a glass of Prosecco that was served in the garden restaurant. After having taken a seat the manager showed up with other probably new arriving guests to whom he was familiar with, took a seat at a near table, chatted with them and did not throw one glance at us, certainly not the perfect host!

On the culinary side, there are two restaurants (both 14 points Gault Millau). Whereas the one outside the building was closed (although it is supposed to be open during summer time), we decided to book a table at the restaurant in the main house. The interior was nice to look at and the view on the lake is hardly to beat. Unfortunately, the inspection of the menu was not as favorable as the before mentioned aspects because the prices are very, very high! Turbot (admittedly one of the best fishes) as a main course amounted to more than SFr. 70.–! We were lucky that there was also a menu where you could chose from several appetizers, main courses and desserts so we went for a 4-course-meal amounting to SFr. 90.–. This was a fair price for a fine meal. I would strongly suggest to the management to re-evaluate the price policy of this restaurant because of its location in a not that known region of Switzerland.

As a brief summary, this is a beautiful property in wonderful surroundings but needs finalizations concerning infrastructure, certain aspects of appearance/service and level of prices.

Date of stay: August 2010