Working through the winter holiday came with one benefit: rest and relaxation once the rest of the world had returned to work in January! While it wasn’t a long break, my husband and I boarded the high-speed train to Reims in mid-January for a bubbly-infused change of scenery.
If I’m being honest, it wasn’t a true holiday either. I was on assignment for Relais & Châteaux’s magazine Instants, for which I previously documented a visit to Crillon le Brave in 2015, testing Les Crayères for the first time. A historic property situated across the street from Maison Pommery, the classically designed hotel is most known for its double Michelin-starred fine dining restaurant led by Meilleur Ouvrier de France chef Philippe Mille which I was eager to try ever since my first visit to the region last summer.
The experience was royal, from the palatial room dressed up in country chic furnishings to the English bar kitted out in English plaid. We napped, we read, we wandered the property’s expansive green grounds and ate as much as we could in such a short period of time. While my lifestyle hews more closely with the bistronomy style of cooking — which is to say, laid…
